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BESIDE    STILL    WATERS 


BESIDE 
STILL    WATERS 

By 

ARTHUR  CHRISTOPHER  BENSON 

Fellow  of  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge 


"I  will  run  the  way  of  Thy  commandments; 
when  Thou  hast  set  my  heart  at  liberty." 


0.  p.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
N[:W  YORK  7\ND  LONDON 
tlbe  Itnickerbocfter   press 
1Q07 


Copyright,  1907 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


library 


Beside   Still  Waters 


Hugh  Neville  was  fond  of  tender  and  mi- 
nute .retrpspect,  and  often  indulged  himself,  in 
lonely  hours,  with  the  meditative  pleasures  of 
memory.  To  look  back  into  the  old  years  was 
to  him  like  gazing  into  a  misty  place,  with  sud- 
den and  bright  glimpses,  and  then  the  cloud 
closed  in  again ;  but  it  was  not  only  with  his 
own  life  that  he  concerned  himself ;  he  liked 
to  trace  in  fancy  his  father's  eager  boyhood, 
brought  up  as  he  had  been  in  a  great  manufac- 
turing town,  by  a  mother  of  straitened  means, 
who  yet  maintained,  among  all  her  restrictions, 
a  careful  tradition  of  gentle  blood  and  honour- 
able descent.  The  children  of  that  household 
had  been  nurtured  with  no  luxuries  and  few 
enjoyments.  Every  pound  of  the  small  income 
had  had  its  appointed  use ;  but  being,  as  they 
were,  ardent,  f^nr|nti<;)pq1  natiirps,  they  had  con- 
trived to  extract  the  best  kind  of  pleasure  out 
I 


1155000 


2  Beside  Still  Waters 

of  books,  art,  and  music  ;  and  the  only  trace 
that  survived  in  Hugh's  father  of  the  old  nar- 
row days,  was  a  deep-seated  hatred  of  waste- 
fulness and  luxury,  which,  in  a  man  of  generous 
nature,  produced  certain  anomalies,  hard  for  his 
children,  living  in  comparative  wealth  and  ease, 
to  interpret.  ^lis  father,  the  boy  observed,  was 
liberal  to  a  fault  in  large  matters,  but  scrupu- 
lously and  needlessly  particular  about  small  ex- 
penses.^He  would  take  the  children  on  a  foreign 
tour,  'and  then  practise  an  elaborate  species 
of  discomfort,  in  an  earnest  endeavour  to  save 
some  minute  disbursements.  He  would  give  his 
son  a  magnificent  book,  and  chide  him  because 
he  cut,  instead  of  untying,  the  string  of  the  par- 
cel. Long  after,  the  boy,  disentanglinghisfather's 
early  life  in  diaries  and  letters,  would  wish,  with 
a  wistful  regret,  that  he  had  only  had  the  clue  to 
this  earlier;  he  would  have  sympathised,  he 
thought,  with  thejd£aJLtiajyay_beaealiLlJl£httle 
economies,  instead  of  fretting  over  them,  and 
discussing  them  rebelliously  with  his  sisters. 
His  father  was  a  man  of  almost  passionate  af- 
fections ;  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  that  he 
more  desired  than  the  company  and  the  sym- 
pathy of  his  children  ;  but  ne  had,  besides  tnis, 
an  intense  and  tremulous  sense  of  responsi- 
bility towards  them.  He  attached  an  undue 
importance  to  small  indications  of  character; 


The  Family  3 

and  thus  the  children  were  seldom  at  ease  with 
their  father,  because  he  rebukedthem  con- 
stantly,  and  found  frequent  fault,  doing  almost 
violence  to  his  tenderness,  not  from  any  pleas- 
ure in  censoriousness,  but  from  a  terror,  that 
was  almost  morbid,  of  the  consequences  of  the 
unchecked  development  of  minute  tendencies. 
Hugh's  mother  was  of  a  very  different  dispo- 
sition ;  she  was  fully  as  affectionate  as  his  father, 
but  of  a  brighter,  livelier,  more  facile  nature ; 
she  came  of  a  wealthy  family,  and  had  never 
known  the  hard  discipline  from  which  his  father 
had  suffered.  She  was  a  good  many  years 
younger  than  her  husband ;  they  were  united 
by  the  intensest  affection;  but  while  she  de- 
voted herself  to  him  with  a  perfect  understand- 
ing of,  and  sympathy  with,  his  somewhat  jealous 
and  puritanical  nature,  she  did  not  escape  the 
severity  of  his  sense  of  responsibility,  and  his 
natural  instinct  for  attempting  to  draw  those 
nearest  to  him  into  the  circle  of  his  high,  if  rigid, 
standards.  Long  afterwards,  Hugh  grew  to 
discern  a  greater  largeness  and  liberality  in  her 
methods  of  dealing  with  life  and  other  natures 
than  his  father  had  displayed ;  and  no  shadow 
of  any  kind  had  ever  clouded  his  love  and  ad- 
miration for  his  mother;  his  love  indeed  could 
not  have  deepened ;  but  he  came  gradually  to 
discern  the  sweet  and  patient  wisdom  which, 


4  Beside  Still  Waters 

after  many  sorrows,  nobly  felt  and  ardently  en- 
dured, filled  and  guided  her  large  and  loving 
heart. 

His  father,  after  a  highly  distinguished  aca- 
demical career,  entered  the  Church  ;  and  at  the 
time  of  Hugh's  birth  he  held  an  important  coun- 
try living,  together  with  one  of  the  Archdeacon- 
ries of  the  diocese. 

Hugh  was  the  eldest  child.  Two  other  child- 
ren, both  sisters,  were  born  into  the  household. 
Hugh  in  later  days  loved  to  trace  in  family  pa- 
pers the  full  and  vivid  life  which  had  surrounded 
his  unconscious  self.  His  mother  had  been 
married  young,  and  was  scarcely  more  than  a 
girl  when  he  was  born  ;  his  father  was  already 
a  man  grave  beyond  his  years,  full  of  affairs, 
and  constantly  occupied.  But  his  melancholy 
moods,  and  they  were  many,  had  drawn  him  to 
value  with  a  pathetic  intentness  the  quiet  family 
life.  Hugh  could  trace  in  old  diaries  the  days 
his  father  and  mother  had  spent,  the  walks  they 
had  taken,  the  books  they  had  read  together. 
There  seemed  for  him  to  brood  over  those  days, 
in  imagination,  a  sort  of  singular  brightness. 
He  always  thought  of  the  old  life  as  going  on 
somewhere,  behind  the  pine  woods,  if  he  could 
only  find  it.  He  could  never  feel  of  it  as 
wholly  past,  but  rather  as  possessing  the  living 
force  of  some  romantic  book,  into  the  atmos- 


The  Scene  5 

phere  of  which  it    was  possible  to  plunge   at 
will. 

And  then  his  own  life ;  how  vivid  and  delicate 
the  perceptions  were  !  Looking  back,  it  always 
seemed  to  be  summer  in  those  days.  He  could 
remember  the  grassy  walks  of  the  pleasant  gar- 
den, which  wound  among  the  shrubberies  ;  the 
old-fashioned  flowers,  sweet-williams  and  Can- 
terbury-bells, that  filled  the  deep  borders ;  the 
rose-garden,  with  the  pointed  white  buds,  or 
the  large  pink  roses,  full  of  scent,  that  would 
fall  at  a  touch  and  leave  nothing  but  an  orange- 
seeded  stump.  But  there  had  been  no  thought 
of  pathos  to  him  in  those  years,  as  there  came 
to  be  afterwards,  in  the  fading  of  sweet  things ; 
it  was  all  curious,  delightful,  strange.  The  im- 
pressions of  sense  were  tyrannously  strong,  so 
that  there  was  hardly  room  for  reflection  or 
imagination  ;  there  was  the  huge  chestnut  cov- 
ered with  white  spires,  that  sent  out  so  heavy 
a  fragrance  in  the  spring  that  it  was  at  last  cut 
down ;  but  the  felling  of  the  tree  was  a  mere 
delightful  excitement,  not  a  thing  to  be  grieved 
over.  The  country  was  very  wild  all  round, 
with  tracts  of  heath  and  sand.  The  melodious 
buzzing  of  nightjars  in  hot  mid-summer  even- 
ings, as  they  swept  softly  along  the  heather, 
lived  constantly  in  his  memory.  In  the  moor- 
land, half  a  mile  away,  stood  some  brick-kilns. 


6  Beside  Still  Waters 

strange  plastered  cones,  with  blackened  tops, 
from  which  oozed  a  pungent  smoke  ;  those  were 
too  terrible  to  be  visited  alone  ;  but  as  he  walked 
past  with  his  nurse,  it  was  delightful  and  yet 
appalling  to  look  into  the  door  of  the  kiln,  and 
see  its  fiery,  glowing  heart.  Two  things  in  par- 
ticular the  boy  grew  to  love  ;  one  was  the  sight 
of  water  in  all  its  forms  ;  a  streamlet  near  the 
house  trickled  out  of  a  bog,  full  of  cotton-grass; 
there  were  curious  plants  to  be  found  here,  a 
low  pink  marsh-bugle,  and  the  sundew,  with  its 
strange,  viscid  red  hands  extended  ;  the  stream 
passed  by  clear  dark  pools  to  a  lake  among  the 
pines,  and  fell  at  the  farther  end  down  a  steep 
cascade  ;  the  dark  gliding  water,  the  mysterious 
things  that  grew  beneath,  the  fish  that  paused 
for  an  instant  and  were  gone,  had  all  a  deep 
fascination  for  the  boy,  speaking,  as  they 
seemed  to  do,  of  a  world  near  and  yet  how  far 
removed  from  his  own  ! 

And  then  still  more  wonderingly,  with  a  kind 
of  interfusion  of  terror  and  mystery,  did  he  love 
the  woodlands  of  that  forest  country.  To  steal 
along  the  edge  of  the  covert,  with  the  trees  knee- 
deep  in  fern,  to  hear  the  flies  hum  angrily  with- 
in, to  find  the  glade  in  spring  carpeted  with 
blue-bells — all  these  sights  and  sounds  took  hold 
of  his  childish  heart  with  a  deep  passion  that 
never  left  him. 


Environment  7 

All  this  life  was,  in  memory,  as  I  have  said, 
a  series  of  vignettes  and  pictures ;  the  little 
dramas  of  the  nursery,  the  fire  that  glowed  in 
the  grate,  the  savour  of  the  fresh-cut  bread  at 
meal-times,  the  games  on  wet  afternoons,  with 
a  tent  made  out  of  shawls  and  chairs,  or  a  fort 
built  of  bricks ;  these  were  the  pictures  that 
visited  Hugh  in  after  days,  small  concrete  things 
and  sensations ;  he  could  trace,  he  often  thought, 
in  later  years,  that  his  early  life  had  been  one 
more  of  perception  than  anything  else ;  sights 
and  sounds  and  scents  had  filled  his  mind,  to 
the  exclusion  of  almost  all  beside.  He  could 
remember  little  of  his  relations  with  those  about 
him ;  the  figures  of  the  family  and  servants 
were  accepted  as  all  part  of  the  environment. 
The  only  very  real  figure  was  the  old  nurse, 
whose  rare  displeasure  he  had  sorrowed  over 
more  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  and 
whose  chance  words,  uttered  to  another  servant 
and  overheard  by  the  child,  that  she  was  think- 
ing of  leaving  them,  had  given  him  a  deeper 
throb  of  emotion  than  anything  he  had  before 
known,  or  was  for  many  years  to  know. 

But  the  time  for  the  eager  and  romantic  asso- 
ciation with  other  people,  which  was  to  play  so 
large  a  part  in  Hugh's  life,  was  not  yet  come. 
People  had  to  be  taken  as  they  came,  and  their 
value  depended  entirely  upon  their  kindness  or 


/ 


/ 


8  Beside  Still  Waters 

unkindness.  There  was  no  sense  of  gratitude 
as  yet,  or  desire  to  win  affection.  If  they  were 
kind,  they  were  unthinkingly  and  instinctively 
liked.  If  they  thwarted  or  interfered  with  the 
child's  little  theory  of  existence,  his  chosen 
amusements,  his  hours  of  leisure,  his  loved  pur- 
suits, they  were  simply  obstacles  around  which 
his  tiny  stream  of  life  must  find  its  way  as  it 
best  could. 

There  was  indeed  one  other  chief  delight  for 
the  child :  the  ordered  services  of  the  Church 
hard  by  the  house.  He  loved  with  all  his  heart 
the  fallen  day,  the  pillared  vault,  the  high  dusty 
cornices,  the  venerable  scent ;  and  the  services, 
with  their  music  solemn  and  sweet,  the  pos- 
tures of  the  ministers,  the  faces,  clothes,  and 
habits  of  the  congregation — all  was  a  delightful 
field  of  pleasing  experience,  "^(etreligion^as 
a  wholly  mirealthing  to  the  child.  He  learned 
his  Bible  lessons  and  psalms ;  he  knew  the  lit- 
urgy by  heart ;  but  the  religious  idea,  the 
thought  of  God,  the  Christian  life  of  effort, 
were  all  things  that  he  merely  accepted  as  so 
many  facts  that  were  taught  him,  but  without 
the  least  interest  in  them,  or  even  the  shadow- 
iest attempt  to  apply  them  to  his  own  life.  It 
seemed  strange  to  Hugh  when,  in  years  long 
after,  religion  came  to  have  so  deep  a  meaning 
to  him,  that  it  should  have  been  so  entirely 


Childhood  9 

a  blank  to  him  in  the  early  days.  God  was  no 
more  to  him  than  a  far-off  monarch ;  a  mighty 
and  shadowy  person,  very  remote  and  power- 
ful, but  the  circle  of  whose  influence  never 
touched  his  own.  And  yet  one  of  the  deepest 
desires  of  his  father's  mind  had  been  to  bring 
a  sense  of  religion  home  to  his  children.  Hugh 
used  to  wonder  how  he  had  missed  it ;  but  the 
practical  application  of  religion,  to  which  the 
Bible  lessons  had  led  up,  had  been  to  the  child 
a  mere  relief  from  the  tension  of  thought,  i 
because  at  last  he  had  escaped  from  the  material  ^ 
teaching  about  which  he  might  be  questioned, 
and  which  he  would  be  expected  to  remember. 
Personal  relations,  then,  had  scarcely  existed 
for  Hugh  as  a  child.  Older  and  bigger  people, 
armed  with  a  vague  authority,  had  to  be 
obeyed,  and  the  boy  had  no  theory  which  could 
account  for  their  inconsequent  behaviour;  they 
were  amiable  or  ill-humoured,  just  or  unjust ; 
he  never  attempted  to  criticise  or  condemn 
them  by  a  moral  standard  ;  he  simply  accepted 
them  as  they  were,  and  kept  as  much  as  possi- 
ble out  of  the  way  of  those  who  manifested 
sharpness  or  indifference.  With  children  of  his 
own  age  it  was  in  many  ways  the  same,  though 
there  seemed  to  the  boy  to  be  more  hope  of 
influencing  their  behaviour;  threats,  anger, 
promises,  compliance  could  be  applied  ;  but  of 


/ 


lo  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  affection  that  simply  desired  to  please  the 
object    of    its   love,    the    boy    knew    nothing. 
Once  or  twice  he  went  away  from  home  on 
a  visit,  and  because  he   wept   on  his  depart- 
ure, he    was  supposed  to  have  a  tender  and 
emotional  nature ;   it  was  not  tenderness,  at 
least    not   tenderness    for   others,   that   made 
him  weep.     It  was  partly   the   terror  of  the 
unknown   and   the   unfamiliar;   it   was  partly 
the  interruption  to  the  even  tenor  of  his  life 
and  the  customary  engagements  of  his   day; 
and  in   this  respect  the   boy  had  what  may 
be    called    a    middled-aged   temperament,    an 
intense   dislike   of   any   interference  with  his 
own  ways ;  he  had  no  enterprise,  none  of  the 
high-hearted  enjoyment  of  novelty,  unless  he 
was    surrounded    by    a    bulwark    of    familiar 
personalities;    but    partly,   too,   his    love  was 
all    given    to    inanimate    things ;    and   as   he 
drove  out  of  the  gate  on  one  of  these  visits, 
the    thought   that  the   larches  of  the    copse 
should  be   putting  out  their  rosy   buds,   the 
rhododendrons    thrusting    out    their    gummy, 
spiky  cases,  the  stream  passing  slowly  through 
its  deep  pools,  the  beehive  in  the  little  birch 
avenue   beginning  to   wake  to   life,   and   that 
he    should   not    be    there    to   go    his    accus- 
tomed   rounds,    and   explore    all   the    minute 
events  of  his  dear   domain — it   was  this  that 


Childhood  ii 

brought  out  the  tears  afresh,  with  a  bitter, 
uncomforted  sense  of  loss  and  bereavement. 
So  the  early  years  passed  for  the  boy,  in  a 
dream  full  to  the  brim  of  small  wonders  and 
fragrant  mysteries.  How  pleasant  it  was  to 
sink  to  sleep  on  summer  evenings  with  the 
imagination  of  voyaging  all  night  in  a  little 
boat  or  carriage  ;  how  delightful  to  wake,  with 
the  morning  sun  streaming  in  at  the  window, 
to  hear  the  casement  ivy  tap  on  the  pane,  and 
to  rehearse  in  the  mind  all  the  tiny  pleasures  of 
the  long  day!  His  short  lessons  were  easy 
enough  for  the  boy ;  he  was  quick  and  acute, 
and  had  a  good  memory ;  but  he  took  not  the 
smallest  interest  in  them,  except  the  interest 
of  making  a  situation  go  smoothly ;  the  only 
interest  was  in  the  thought  of  the  unmolested 
lonely  play  that  was  to  follow.  He  cared 
little  for  games,  though  they  had  a  certain 
bitter  excitement,  the  desire  of  emulation,  the 
joy  of  triumph  about  them.  He  loved  best 
an  aimless  wending  from  haunt  to  haunt,  an 
accumulation  of  small  treasures  in  places  un- 
known to  others;  and,  most  of  all,  the  rich 
sense  of  observation  of  a  hundred  curious  and 
delicate  things;  the  nests  of  birds  in  the  shrub- 
bery, the  glossy  cones  of  the  young  pines,  the 
green,  uncurling  fingers  of  the  bracken,  the 
fresh    green    sword-grass    that    grew    beneath 


/ 


12  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  firs;  he  did  ,not^care  to  know  the 
nature  of  the  reasons  of  these  things;  it 
was  enough  simply  to  see  them,  to  explore 
them  with  restless  fingers,  to  recognise 
their  scents,  hues,  and  savours,  with  the 
sharp  and  unblunted  perceptions  of  child- 
hood. 

Then  came  the  intellectual  awakening. 
Hugh's  mother,  who  had  an  extraordinary  gift 
for  improvisation,  began  to  tell  the  children 
stories  in  the  nursery  evenings ;  and  these  tales 
of  giants  and  fairies  grew  to  have  an  extreme 
fascination  for  the  child ;  not  that  he  peopled 
his  own  world  with  them,  as  some  imaginative 
children  do  ;  the  boy's  perceptions  were  too 
definite  for  that ;  such  beings  belonged  to  a  dif- 
ferent region  ;  he  had  no  idea  that  they  existed 
or  had  ever  existed.  They  belonged  to  the 
story  world,  which  was  associated  in  his  mind 
with  bright  fires  and  toys  put  away,  when 
he  nestled  as  close  as  he  could  to  his  mother's 
knee,  with  her  hand  in  both  his  own,  explor- 
ing every  ring  and  every  finger,  till  he  could 
recall,  many  years  after,  each  turn  and  curve, 
and  even  each  finger-nail  of  those  dear  hands. 
And  then  at  last  came  the  supremest  joy  of 
all ;  the  children  used  to  be  summoned  down 
to  their  rnother's  room,  and  she  began  to  read 
aloud  Ivanhoe  to  them  ;  and  tlien  indeed  aH^w 


Books  13 

world,  a  world  that  had  really  existed  sprang 
to  light. 

Hugh  used  to  wonder  afterwards  how  much 
he  had  really  understood  of  what  was  read;  but 
the  whole  thing  seemed  absolutely  alive  to  him ; 
his  pictorial  fancy  came  into  play,  and  the  de- 
tails of  woods  and  heaths  that  he  knew  so  well 
began  to  serve  him  in  good  stead ;  and  then  the 
child,  who  had  before  thought  of  reading  as 
merely  a  tiresome  art  that  he  was  forced  to 
practise,  found  that  it  was  the  key  that  admit- 
ted him  into  this  wonderful  world.  It  did  not 
indeed  destroy  his  relish  for  the  outer  world  of 
nature,  for  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  when  it  was 
possible  to  slip  out  of  doors,  he  went  his  soli- 
tary way,  looking,  looking ;  until  every  tree  and 
flower-border  and  thicket  of  the  small  domain 
became  so  sharply  imprinted  upon  the  mind 
that,  years  after,  he  could  walk  in  memory 
through  the  sunny  garden,  and  recall  the 
minutest  details  with  an  astonishing  accuracy. 

But  books  became  for  the  child  a  large  part 
of  his  life.  It  was  a  story  that  he  desired,  some- 
thing that  should  create  a  scene  for  him,  person- 
alities like  or  unlike  his  own,  whose  deeds  and 
words  he  could  survey,  leaning,  so  it  seemed  to 
him,  from  a  magic  casement  into  the  new  scene. 
His  father,  whose  taste  was  for  the  improving 
in  literature,  was  willing  enough  that  the  boy 


/ 


H  Beside  Still  Waters 

should  be  supplied  with  books,  but  hardly  un- 
derstood that  the  child  was  living  in  a  world  of 
bright  fancies  and  simple  dreams.  His  father, 
moreover,  who  had  all  his  life  had  a  harder  and 
more  definite  turn  of  thought,  and  had  desired 
knowledge  of  a  precise  kind,  wanted  the  boy  to 
read  the  little  dry  books,  uncouthly  and  elabo- 
rately phrased,  that  had  pleased  himself  in  his 
own  early  days.  Hugh's  mind  was  precise 
enough ;  but  these  terse  biographies,  these 
books  of  travel,  these  semi-scientific  stories 
seemed  to  Hugh  only  to  relate  the  things  that 
he  did  not  want  to  know.  His  father  had  been 
born  at  a  time  when  the  interest  in  the  educa- 
tion of  children  was  first  taking  shape,  the  days 
of  Miss  Edge  worth's  Frank,  and  Harry  and 
Lucy,  that  strange  atmosphere  of  gravity  and 
piety,  when  children  were  looked  upon  as  a 
serious  responsibility  more  than  as  a  poetical  ac- 
cessory to  life  ;  not  as  mysterious  and  fairylike 
creatures,  to  be  delicately  wooed  and  tenderly 
guided,  but  rather  as  little  men  and  women, 
to  be  repressed  and  trained,  and  made  as  soon 
as  possible  to  have  a  sense  of  responsibility  too. 
Hugh  used  to  look  at  the  old  books  in  later 
days,  and  wonder  what  the  exact  social  posi- 
tion of  the  parents  in  such  books  as  Frank,  and 
Harry  and  Lucy,  was  supposed  to  be.  They 
lived   in  the  country ;  they    were   not  appar- 


Books  1 5 

ently  wealthy ;  they  lived  with  much  sim- 
plicity. Yet  Harry's  father  seemed  to  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  conduct  his  children  over 
manufactories,  and  to  take  them  for  long  walks 
— in  the  course  of  which  he  diligently  improved 
their  minds  by  a  species  of  Socratic  inquiry. 
But  Hugh  never  thought  of  quarrelling  with 
the  books  provided  ;  he  seized  upon  any  trace  of 
humanity  or  amusement  that  they  afforded,  any 
symptoms  of  character  and  liveliness,  and  sim- 
ply evaded  the  improving  portion,  which  blew 
like  a  dry  wind  over  his  spirit.  When  his  father 
talked  over  the  books  with  the  child,  he  listened 
tolerantly  to  the  boy's  amusement  at  how  the 
cake  had  rolled  down  the  hill,  or  how  the  little 
pig  had  got  into  the  garden  ;  but  he  was  disap- 
pointed that  the  boy  seemed  not  to  care  whether 
the  stone  which  Harry  threw  described  a  para- 
bola or  not,  though  there  was  an  odious  diagram 
to  explain  it,  full  of  dotted  lines  and  curves. 
Yet  the  boy  held  on  his  way,  deaf  to  all  that 
did  not  move  him  or  interest  him,  and  fixing 
jealously  on  all  that  fed  his  fancy.  Such  books 
as  Grimm's  Fairy  Tqlcs  and  Masterman  Ready 
were  wells  of  delight,  enacted  as  they  were  in 
a  strange  and  exciting  world;  and  he  was  sensi- 
tive, too,  to  the  beauty  of  metre  and  sonorous 
phrases,  learning  poetry  so  easily  that  it  was  sup- 
posed to  be  a  species  of  wilfulness  in  him  that 


/ 


/ 


i6  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  Collects  and  texts,  and  the  very  Psalms — 
that  seemed  to  him  so  unreal  and  husk-like  then, 
and  that  later  became  to  him  like  fruits  full  of 
refreshment  and  savour  and  sweet  juice — found 
their  way  slowly  into  his  memory,  and  were  so 
easily  forgotten.  ^     .rv 


II 


The  time  came  for  Hugh  to  go  to  school.  He 
drifted,  it  seemed  to  him  afterwards,  with  a  sin- 
gular indifference  and  apathy  of  mind,  into  the 
new  life,  though  the  parting  from  home  was 
one  of  dumb  misery ;  not  that  he  cared  deeply, 
as  a  softer-hearted  child  might  have  cared,  at 
being  parted  from  his  father,  his  mother,  his 
sisters.  People,  even  those  nearest  to  the  boy, 
were  still  only  a  part  of  the  background  of  life,  ^ 
a  little  nearer  perhaps,  but  hardly  dearer,  hardly 
more  important  than  trees  and  flowers,  except 
that  a  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent  with 
them.  But  the  last  afternoon  in  the  familiar  scene 
—  it  was  a  hot,  bright  September  day — tried 
the  boy's  fortitude  to  the  uttermost.  He  felt  as 
though  the  trees  and  walks  would  almost  miss 
his  greeting  and  presence — and  what  was  the 
saddest  part  of  all  to  him  was  that  he  could  not 
be  sure  of  this.  Was  the  world  that  he  loved 
indifferent  to  him  ?  Did  it  perhaps  not  heed 
him,  not  even  perceive  him  ?  He  had  al- 
ways fancied  that  trees  and  flowers  had  a 
species  of  sight,  that  they    watched  him,   the 

a  17 


i8  Beside  Still  Waters 

trees  shyly  out  of  their  green  foliage,  the  flow- 
ers with  their  bright  unshrinking  gaze.  The 
tallest  Xrees  seemed  to  look  down  on  him 
from  a  height,  regarding  him  with  a  digni- 
fied and  quiet  interest ;  his_-personal  affection 
for  them  had  led  him  indeed  to  be  careful  not 
to  ill-use  them  ;  he  had  always  disliked  the 
^  gathering  of  flowers,  the  tearing  off  of  boughs 
or  leaves  from  shrubs.  They  seemed  to  suffer 
injury  patiently,  but  none  the  less  did  he  think 
that  they  were  hurt.  He  liked  to  touch  the 
full-blown  heads  of  the  roses,  when  they  yielded 
their  petals  at  a  touch  into  his  hand,  because 
it  seemed  that  they  gave  themselves  willingly. 
And  then,  too,  when  the  big  china  bowl  that 
stood  in  the  hall  was  full  of  them,  and  they 
were  mixed  with  spices,  the  embalming  process 
seemed  to  give  them  a  longer  and  a  fuller  life. 

But  now  he  was  leaving  all  this ;  day  after  day 
the  garden  would  bloom,  until  the  autumn 
came,  and  the  trees  showered  down  their  golden 
leaves  on  walk  and  lawn.  He  had  seen  it  year 
after  year,  and  now  he  would  see  it  no  more. 
Would  they  miss  him  as  he  would  miss  them? 
And  so  the  last  afternoon  was  to  him  a  wistful 
valediction  ;  he  went  softly  about,  to  and  fro, 
with  a  strange  sadness  at  his  heart,  the  first 
shadow  of  the  leave-takings  of  the  world. 

The  school  to  which  he  went  was  a  big  place 


The  Schoolmaster  19 

in  the  suburbs  of  London,  standing  near  a  royal  jf^^v 
park.  The  place  was  full  of  dignified  houses, 
standing  among  trees  and  paddocks,  with  high 
blank  garden-walls  everywhere.  The  school  it- 
self had  been  once  a  great  suburban  mansion, 
the  villa  of  a  statesman.  The  rooms  were 
large,  high,  and  dignified,  but  the  bareness  of 
life,  under  the  new  conditions,  was  a  great  trial 
to  the  boy.  He  had  a  certain  luxuriousness  of 
temperament,  not  in  matters  of  meat  and  drink, 
but  in  the  surroundings  and  apparatus  of  life. 
The  bare,  uncurtained,  uncarpeted  rooms,  the 
big  dormitory  with  its  cubicles,  the  stone- 
flagged  passages,  all  appeared  to  him  mean 
and  sordid.  His  schoolmaster  was  a  man  of 
real  force  of  character,  a  tall  stately  personage 
with  a  great  enthusiasm  for  literature,  a  fine 
converser  and  teacher,  and  with  a  deep  insight 
into  character.  But  this  was  marred  by  a  want 
of  tenderness,  a  certain  harshness  of  disposi- 
tion, and  a  belief  that  boys  needed  to  be  re- 
pressed and  dragooned.  Hugh  conceived  an 
overwhelming  terror  for  this  majestic  man,  with 
the  dress  and  bearing  of  a  fine  gentleman,  with 
his  flashing  eyes,  his  thin  lips,  his  grey  curly 
hair,  his  straggling  beard.  He  was  a  friend  of 
Hugh's  father,  and  took  a  certain  interest  in  the 
boy,  especially  when  he  discovered  that,  though 
dreamy   and    forgetful,  Hugh's  abilities   were 


20  Beside  Still  Waters 

still  of  a  high  order.  His  work  was,  in  fact, 
always  easy  to  him,  though  he  was  entirely 
destitute  of  ambition.  Certain  scenes  impressed 
themselves  on  the  boy's  mind  with  extraordi- 
nary vividness.  Mr.  Russell,  the  schoolmaster, 
used  to  read  out  every  week  a  passage  for  the 
boys  to  turn  into  verse.  He  read  finely,  and 
Hugh  noticed,  with  a  curious  surprise,  that  Mr. 
Russell  was  almost  invariably  affected  to  tears 
by  his  reading.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  scene 
which  he  saw,  when  he  and  certain  other  boys 
were  waiting  to  have  their  exercises  looked 
over,  was  for  years  a  kind  of  nightmare  to  him. 
There  was  a  slow  and  stupid  boy  in  the  class, 
whom  Mr.  Russell  chose  to  consider  obstinate, 
and  who  was  severely  caned,  in  the  presence  of 
the  others,  for  mistakes  in  his  exercise.  Even 
ten  years  after,  Hugh  could  remember  with  a 
species  of  horror  the  jingling  of  the  keys  in  Mr. 
Russell's  pocket,  as  he  took  them  out  to  unlock 
the  drawer  where  the  cane  lay.  Perhaps  this 
proved  a  salutary  lesson  for  Hugh,  for  the  ter- 
ror that  such  an  incident  might  befall  himself, 
caused  him  to  take  an  amount  of  trouble  with 
his  exercises  which  he  would  certainly  not 
otherwise  have  bestowed. 

On  Sunday  evenings  Mr.  Russell  read  aloud 
to  the  upper  boys  in  his  drawing-room ;  and 
this  was  a  happy  time  for  Hugh;  he  loved  to 


School  Life  21 

sit  in  a  deep  chair,  and  feast  his  eyes  upon  the 
pictures,  the  china,  the  warm  carpet  and  cur- 
tains of  the  fire-ht  room,  and  the  books  that  he 
heard  read  had  a  curious  magic  for  him.  Mr. 
Russell  never  seemed  to  take  any  particular 
notice  of  him,  and  Hugh  used  to  feel  that  he 
was  despised  for  his  want  of  savoir  /aire,  his 
slovenliness,  his  timidity ;  and  it  was  a  great 
surprise  to  discover,  long  after,  a  bundle  of  let- 
ters from  Mr.  Russell  to  his  father,  in  which  he 
found  his  abilities  and  shortcomings  discussed 
with  extraordinary  penetration. 

Hugh  played  no  games  at  school  ;  there  was 
not  then  the  organisation  of  school  games 
which  has  since  grown  up.  His  favourite  occu- 
pation was  wandering  about  the  big  grounds, 
to  which  certain  boys  were  admitted,  or  joining 
in  the  walks,  which  a  dozen  boys,  conducted  by 
a  peevish  or  good-tempered  usher,  as  the  case 
might  be,  used  to  take  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  school.  The  high  garden-walls,  with  the 
mysterious  posterns,  the  huge  horse-chestnuts 
looking  over,  the  leaded  tops  of  the  classical 
arbours  with  which  the  grounds  of  an  adjacent 
villa  were  adorned  ;  the  great  gate-posts  of  the 
main  entrances,  the  school-house  itself,  looking 
grimly  down  from  a  great  height, — all  these  held 
strange  mysteries  for  the  boy,  sinking  uncon- 
sciously into  his  spirit. 


22  Beside  Still  Waters 

But  he  made  very  few  friends  either  with 
masters  or  boys.  He  had  none  of  the  merry 
sociability  of  childhood  ;  he  confided  in  no  one, 
he  simply  lived  his  life  reluctantly,  hating  the 
place,  never  sure  that  some  ugly  and  painful 
punishment,  some  ridicule  or  persecution  might 
not  fall  on  him  out  of  a  clear  sky  for  some  of- 
fence unconsciously  committed.  He  had  hardly 
a  single  pleasant  memory  connected  with  the 
school,  except  of  certain  afternoons  when  the 
boys  who  had  done  well  for  the  week  were  al- 
lowed to  go  without  supervision  to  the  neigh- 
bouring shops,  and  purchase  simple  provender. 
But  if  he  made  no  friends,  he  at  least  made  no 
enemies;  he  was  always  friendly  and  good-tem- 
pered, and  he  was  preserved  by  his  solitariness 
from  all  grossness  and  evil.  It  was  a  big  school, 
and  occasionally  he  perceived  in  the  talk  and 
behaviour  of  his  companions  the  signs  of  some 
ugly  and  obscene  mystery  that  he  did  not  un- 
derstand, and  that  he  had  no  wish  to  penetrate. 
But  the  result,  which  in  after  days  surprised  him 
with  a  sense  of  deep  gratitude  and  thankful- 
ness, was,  that  though  he  spent  two  years  at  this 
school,  he  left  it  with  absolutely  untainted  inno- 
cence, such  innocence  as  in  later  days  he  would 
have  held  to  be  almost  inconceivable,  as  to  all 
the  darker  temptations  of  the  senses.  But  the 
absence  of   close  human  relationship  was  the 


Companions  23 

strange  thing.  He  had  a  few  boys  with  whom 
he  associated  in  a  familiar  way.  But  he  had  no 
idea  of  the  homes  from  which  they  came,  he 
knew  nothing  of  their  inner  taste  and  fancies. 
And  though  his  own  feehngs  and  interests  were 
definite  enough  and  even  strong,  though  he 
read  books  of  all  kinds  with  intense  avidity,  he 
never  spoke  of  them  to  other  boys,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  was  averse  to  writing  letters 
home ;  his  father  complained  once  during  the 
holidays  that  he  knew  nothing  of  what  the  boy 
did  at  school.  Hugh  could  not  put  into  words 
what  he  felt  to  be  the  truth,  namely,  that  he 
hardly  knew  himself.  He  submitted  quietly 
and  obediently  to  the  dull  routine  of  the  place, 
and  felt  so  little  interest  in  it,  that  he  could 
not  conceive  his  father  could  do  so  either. 
There  were  of  course  occasional  exciting  inci- 
dents, but  to  relate  them  would  have  required 
so  much  explanation,  such  a  list  of  personages, 
such  a  description  of  circumstances,  that  he 
felt  unable  to  embark  upon  it.  His  father  asked 
him  whether  he  would  not  like  some  of  his  school 
friends  to  visit  him  at  home,  and  he  rejected  the 
suggestion  with  a  kind  of  incredulous  horror. 
The  thought  of  invading  the  sanctity,  the  famil- 
iarity of  home,  with  the  presence  of  a  boy  who 
might  reveal  its  secrets  to  others,  was  too  appall- 
ing to  face ;  it  hardly  occurred  to  him  that  the 


24  Beside  Still  Waters 

boys  had  homes  of  their  own,  places  which  they 
loved.  He  only  thought  of  them  as  figures  on 
the  school  stage,  to  be  conciliated,  tolerated, 
lived  with,  his  only  preoccupation  being  to 
shield  and  guard  his  own  heart  and  inner  life 
from  any  intruding  influence  whatever.  He 
had  no  desire  ever  to  see  one  of  the  crew  again, 
y  boys  or  masters.  Some  indeed  were  preferable 
to  others,  but  no  one  could  be  trusted  for  an  in- 
stant ;  the  only  safe  course  was  to  make  no 
claim,  and  to  shield  one's  self  as  far  as  possible 
against  all  external  influences,  all  alliances,  all 
relationships. 

Hugh,  in  after  life,  could  hardly  recall  the 
faces  of  any  of  his  companions ;  the  only  way 
at  the  time  in  which  he  differentiated  them 
to  himself  was  that  some  looked  kinder  than 
others — that  was  the  only  thing  that  mattered. 
Thus  the  years  dragged  themselves  along,  the 
school-time  hated  with  an  intensity  of  dislike, 
the  holidays  eagerly  welcomed  as  a  return  to 
old  pursuits.  The  boy  used  to  lie  awake  in  a 
big  dormitory  in  the  early  summer  mornings, 
thinking  with  vague  terror  and  disquiet  of  the 
ordered  day  of  labour  that  lay  before  him. 
There  were  peacocks  kept  in  the  grounds 
whose  shrill  feminine  screams  of  despairing  re- 
proach were  always  inseparably  connected  with 
the  dreariness  of  the  place.       His  last  morning 


Relief  25 

at  the  school  he  awoke  early,  full  of  joyful  ex- 
citement, and  heard  the  familiar  cries  with  a 
thankful  sense  that  he  would  never  hear  them 
again.  He  said  no  good-byes,  made  no  fare- 
well visits.  He  waved  his  hand,  as  he  drove 
away,  in  merry  derision  at  the  grim  high  win- 
dows that  looked  down  on  the  road,  the  only 
thought  in  his  mind  being  the  feeling  of  un- 
conquerable relief  that  the  place  would  see  him 
no  more. 

He  used  to  wonder,  in  after  days,  whether 
this  could  not  have  been  avoided  ;  whether  it 
was  a  wholesome  discipline  for  a  child  of  his 
age  and  perhaps  peculiar  temperament  to  have 
been  brought  up  under  these  conditions.  After 
all,  it  is  the  case  of  the  average  boy  that  has  to 
be  considered,  and  for  the  average  boy,  insou- 
ciant, healthy-minded,  boisterous,  there  is  prob- 
ably little  doubt  that  the  barrack-life  of  school 
has  its  value.  Probably  too  for  Hugh  himself, 
though  it  did  not  in  any  way  develop  his  intel- 
lect or  his  temperament,  it  had  a  real  value.  It 
taught  him  a  certain  self-reliance ;  it  showed 
him  that  what  was  disagreeable  was  not  neces- 
sarily intolerable.  What  Hugh  needed  to 
make  him  effective  was  a  certain  touch  of  the 
world,  a  certain  hardness,  which  his  home  life 
did  not  tend  to  develop.  And  thus  this  bleak 
and  uncheered  episode  of  life  gave  him  a  super- 


26  Beside  Still  Waters 

ficial  ordinariness,  and  taught  him  the  need  of 
conventional  compliance  with  the  ways  of  the 
mysterious,  uninteresting  world.  l^ 

A 


Ill 


The  change  was  accomplished,  and  Hugh  went 
to  a  public  school.  In  later  life,  conscious  as 
he  became  of  the  strain  and  significance  of  per- 
sonal relations  with  others,  he  used  to  wonder 
at  the  careless  indifference  with  which  he  had 
entered  the  big  place  which  was  to  be  his  home 
for  several  years,  and  was  to  leave  so  deep  a 
mark  upon  him.  In  his  mature  life,  in  the  case 
of  the  oflficial  positions  he  was  afterwards  to 
hold,  unimportant  though  they  were,  the 
thought  of  his  relations  to  those  with  whom  he 
was  to  work,  the  necessity  of  adapting  himself 
to  their  temperaments,  of  establishing  terms  of 
intercourse  with  them,  used  to  weigh  on  his 
mind  for  many  days  before  the  work  began. 
But  here,  he  reflected,  where  life  was  lived  on 
so  much  closer  terms,  when  the  words  and 
deeds,  the  feelings  and  fancies  of  the  boys, 
among  whom  he  was  to  live,  were  of  the  deep- 
est and  most  vital  importance,  he  entered  upon 
the  new  life,  dull  and  careless,  without  interest 
or  excitement,  simply  going  because  he  was 
sent,  just  dumbly  desirous  of  ease  and  tran- 
37 


28  Beside  Still  Waters 

quilHty.  He  had  been  elected  on  to  the  foun- 
dation of  an  ancient  school,  and  the  surroundings 
of  the  new  place  did  indeed  vaguely  affect 
him  with  a  sort  of  solemn  pleasure.  The 
quaint  mediaeval  chambers  ;  the  cloisters,  with 
their  dark  and  mysterious  doorways  ;  the  hall, 
/  with  its  high  timbered  roof  and  stained  glass  ; 
the  huge  Tudor  chapel,  with  its  pure  white 
soaring  lines ;  the  great  organ,  the  rich  stall- 
work,  and  the  beautiful  fields  with  their  great 
elms — all  this  gave  him  a  dim  delight.  He  was 
taken  to  school  by  his  father,  who  was  full  of 
affection,  hope,  and  anxiety.  But  it  seemed  to 
Hugh,  with  the  curiously  observant  power  that 
y  he  always  possessed,  though  he  could  not  have 
put  it  into  words,  that  his  father,  rather  than 
himself,  was  experiencing  the  emotion  that  it 
would  have  been  appropriate  for  him  to  have 
felt.  His  father  was  disappointed  that  Hugh 
did  not  seem  more  conscious  of  membership,  of 
the  dignity  and  greatness  of  the  place.  His 
tender  care  about  the  books,  the  pictures,  and 
the  furnishing  of  Hugh's  little  room,  did  in- 
deed move  the  boy  to  a  certain  gratitude.  But 
his  father's  way  on  such  occasions  was  to  order 
what  he  himself  would  have  liked,  and  his  taste 
V  was  severe ;  and  then  he  demanded  that  the 
boy  should  not  only  accept,  but  enthusiastically 
like,  what  was  given  him.     Hugh's  immature 


The  Public  School  29 

taste  was  all  for  what  was  bright  and  fanciful ; 
his  father's  for  what  was  grave  and  dignified  ; 
and  thus  though  the  boy  was  glad  to  have 
pictures  of  his  own,  he  had  rather  that  they 
had  not  been  engravings  of  old  religious  pic- 
tures ;  and  he  would  have  preferred  dainty 
china  objects,  such  as  candlesticks  and  orna- 
ments, to  the  solid  metal  fittings  which  his 
father  gave  him.  When  they  parted,  his  father 
gave  him  a  serious  exhortation  to  which  the 
child  hardly  listened.  He  set  him  on  his  guard 
against  certain  temptations,  when  Hugh  was  ig- 
norant of  what  he  was  alluding  to ;  and  the  emo- 
tion with  which  the  boy  took  leave  of  his  father 
was  rather  envy  that  he  was  returning  to  the 
dear  home  life,  than  regret  at  being  parted  from 
him. 

The  first  two  years  of  the  boy's  school  life 
passed  like  a  bewildered  dream  ;  he  had  a  com- 
panion or  two,  but  hardly  a  friend  ;  he  had  little 
idea  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  big  place  round 
him ;  he  was  not  in  the  least  ambitious  of  dis- 
tinction either  in  work  or  games;  his  one  desire 
was  not  to  be  conspicuous  in  any  way.  He  was 
now  a  shy,  awkward  creature  ;  but  he  was  good- 
humoured  enough,  and  as  his  performances  ex- 
cited no  envy  in  any  of  his  companions,  he  was 
left  to  a  great  extent  to  his  own  devices.  The 
masters  with  whom  he  was  brought  into  contact 


30  Beside  Still  Waters 

he  regarded  with  a  distant  awe;  it  never  occurred 
to  him  that  they  took  any  interest  in  their  work 
or  in  the  characters  of  the  boys  they  dealt  with. 
He  supposed  vaguely  that  they  liked  to  show 
their  power  by  scoring  under  the  mistakes  in 
exercises,  and  by  setting  punishments.  But  they 
were  all  dim  and  inhuman  beings  to  him.  Only 
very  gradually  did  it  dawn  upon  the  boy  that  he 
had  a  place  in  a  big  society.  He  was  habitually 
unsuccessful  in  examinations,  but  he  became 
a  proficient  in  football,  which  gave  him  a  cer- 
tain small  consequence.  He  began  to  give 
thought  to  his  clothes,  and  to  adopt  the  custom- 
ary tone  of  talk,  not  because  he  felt  in  sym- 
pathy with  it,  but  because  it  was  a  convenient 
shield  under  which  he  could  pursue  his  own 
ideas.  But  his  tastes  were  feeble  enough  ;  he 
spent  hours  in  the  great  school  library,  a  cool 
panelled  room,  and  though  he  had  no  taste  for 
anything  that  was  hard  or  vigorous,  he  read  an 
immense  amount  of  poetry  and  fiction.  He  be- 
gan, too,  to  write  poetry,  with  extraordinary 
precautions  that  his  occupation  should  not  be 
discovered.  He  was  present  on  one  occasion 
when  a  store  of  poems,  the  work  of  a  curious 
and  eccentric  boy  of  his  own  age,  was  discov- 
ered in  the  drawer  of  a  bureau.  These  were 
solemnly  read  aloud  by  a  small  tormentor,  while 
the  unhappy  author,  writhing  with  shame  and 


Friendships  31 

misery,  was  firmly  held  in  a  chair,  and  each 
composition  received  with  derisive  comments 
and  loud  laughter.  Hugh  had  joined,  he  re- 
membered with  a  sense  of  self-reproach,  in  the 
laughter  and  the  criticisms,  though  he  felt  in 
his  heart  both  interest  in  and  admiration  for  the 
poems.  But  he  dare  not  so  far  brave  ridicule 
as  to  express  his  feelings,  and  simply  fell  tamely 
and  ungenerously,  into  the  general  tone.  He 
did  indeed  make  feeble  overtures  afterwards  to 
the  author,  which  were  suspiciously  and  fiercely 
repelled,  and  the  only  practical  lesson  that 
Hugh  learned  from  the  scene  was  to  conceal 
his  own  literary  experiments  with  a  painful 
caution. 

But  as  the  years  passed  there  came  a  new  in- 
fluence into  Hugh's  life.  He  had  always  been 
observant,  in  his  quiet  way,  of  other  boys,  and 
at  last,  as  his  nature  developed,  he  began  to 
idealise  them  in  a  romantic  way.  The  first  ob- 
ject of  his  admiration  was  a  boy  much  older 
than  himself,  an  independent,  graceful  creature, 
who  had  a  strong  taste  for  beautiful  things,  and 
adorned  his  room  with  china  and  pictures;  he 
was  moreover  a  contributor  of  verses  to  the 
school  magazine,  which  seemed  to  Hugh  mod- 
els of  elegance  and  grace.  But  he  was  far  too 
shy  to  think  of  attracting  the  notice  of  his 
hero.     It  simply  became  an  intense  preoccupa- 


32  Beside  Still  Waters 

tion  to  watch  him,  in  chapel  or  hall ;  it  was  a 
fearful  joy  to  meet  him,  and  he  used  to  invent 
excuses  for  passing  his  room,  till  he  knew  the 
very  ornaments  and  pictures  by  sight.  That 
room  seemed  to  him  a  kind  of  sacred  shrine, 
where  a  bright  being  lived  a  life  of  high  and 
lofty  intellectual  emotion.  But  he  never  suc- 
ceeded in  exchanging  a  word  with  the  object  of 
his  admiration,  except  on  a  certain  day,  marked 
in  his  calendar  long  after  with  letters  of  gold. 
There  was  a  regatta  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  school,  to  which  the  boys  were  allowed  to  go 
under  certain  conditions.  He  had  gone,  and  had 
spent  his  day  in  wandering  about  alone,  until 
the  glare  and  the  crowd  had  brought  on  a  head- 
ache ;  and  he  had  resolved  to  return  home  by 
an  early  train.  He  went  to  the  station,  hoping 
that  he  might  be  unobserved,  and  stepped  into 
an  empty  carriage.  Just  as  the  train  started, 
he  heard  rapid  steps;  the  door  was  flung  open, 
and  his  hero  entered.  Seeing  a  junior  boy  of 
his  own  house  in  the  carriage,  he  made  some 
good-natured  remark,  and  before  Hugh  could 
realise  the  greatness  of  his  good  fortune,  his 
hero  had  sat  down  beside  him,  and  after  a 
few  words,  with  a  friendly  impulse,  had  launched 
into  a  ghost  story  which  lasted  the  whole  of  the 
journey,  and  the  very  phrases  of  which  haunted 
Hugh's  mind   for  weeks.     They   had  walked 


Friendships  33 

down  from  the  station  together,  but  alas  for 
the  vicissitudes  of  human  affairs,  his  god,  con- 
tented with  having  shown  courteous  kindness 
to  a  lonely  and  uninteresting  small  boy,  never 
gave  him  for  the  rest  of  the  school  term,  after 
which  he  left,  the  slightest  sign  of  recognition  ; 
and  yet  for  years  after  the  fields  and  trees  and 
houses  which  they  had  passed  on  the  line  were 
suffused  for  Hugh  with  a  subtle  emotion  in  the 
memory  of  that  journey. 

And  then,  a  little  later  than  this,  Hugh  had 
the  first  and  perhaps  the  most  abiding  joy  of 
his  life.  A  clever,  ambitious,  active  boy  of  his 
own  standing,  whom  he  had  long  secretly  ad- 
mired, took  a  pronounced  fancy  to  him.  He 
was  a  boy,  Hugh  saw  afterwards,  with  a  deeply 
jealous  disposition  ;  and  the  first  attraction  of 
Hugh's  friendship  had  been  the  fact  that  Hugh 
threatened  his  supremacy  in  no  department 
whatever.  Hugh  was  the  only  boy  of  the  set 
who  had  never  done  better  than  he  in  anything. 
But  then  there  came  in  a  more  generous  feeling. 
Hugh's  heart  awoke;  there  was  nothing  which 
it  was  not  a  pleasure  to  do  for  his  friend.  He 
would  put  anything  aside,  at  any  moment,  to 
walk,  to  talk,  to  discharge  little  businesses,  to 
fetch  and  carry,  to  be  in  attendance.  More- 
over, Hugh  found  his  tongue,  but  his  anxiety 
to  retain  his  friend's  affection  made  him  astonish- 


34  Beside  Still  Waters 

ingly  tactful  and  discreet.  He  was  always  ready 
to  sympathise,  to  enter  into  any  suggestion  ;  he 
suppressed  himself  and  his  own  tastes  complete- 
ly and  utterly;  and  he  found,  too,  to  his  vast 
delight,  that  he  could  be  entertaining  and  amus- 
ing. The  books  he  had  read,  the  fiction  with 
which  he  had  crammed  himself,  his  keen  eye 
for  idiosyncrasies  and  absurdities,  all  came  to 
his  assistance,  and  he  was  amply  repaid  by  a 
smile  for  his  trouble. 

The  two  boys  became  inseparable,  and  per- 
haps the  thing  that  made  those  days  of  com- 
panionship bright  with  a  singular  and  golden 
brightness,  was  that  there  was  in  his  friend  the 
same  fastidious  vein,  the  same  dislike  of  any 
coarseness  of  .talk  or  thought  which  was  strong 
in  Hugh.  Looking  back  on  his  school  life,  with 
all  the  surprising  foulness  of  the  talk  of  even 
high-principled  boys,  it  was  a  deep  satisfaction 
to  Hugh  to  reflect  that  there  had  never  been  in 
the  course  of  this  friendship  a  single  hint,  so 
far  as  he  could  recollect,  in  their  own  intercourse 
with  each  other,  of  the  existence  of  evil.  They 
had  tacitly  ignored  it,  and  yet  there  had  not 
been  the  least  priggishness  about  the  relation- 
ship. They  had  never  inquired  about  each 
other's  aspirations  or  virtues,  in  the  style  of 
sentimental  school-books.  They  had  never  said 
a  word  of  religion,  nor  had  there  ever  been  the 


The  Opening  Heart  35 

smallest  expression  of  sentiment.  All  that  was 
taken  for  granted.  It  was  indeed  one  of  those 
perfect,  honest,  wholesome  companionships, 
which  can  only  exist  between  two  cheerful  boys 
of  the  same  age.  Hugh  indeed  was  conscious 
of  a  depth  of  sacred  emotion,  too  sacred  to  be 
spoken  of  to  any  one,  even  to  be  expressed  to 
himself.  It  was  not,  in  fact,  a  definite  relation 
which  he  represented  to  himself ;  it  was  rather 
like  a  new  light  shed  abroad  over  his  life ;  in- 
cidents had  a  savour,  a  sharp  outline  which  they 
had  lacked  before.  He  became  conscious,  too, 
of  the  movement  and  intermingling  of  personal 
forces,  of  characters.  He  no  longer  had  the 
purely  spectatorial  observation  of  others  which 
had  distinguished  him  before,  but  beheld  other 
personalities,  as  in  a  mirror,  in  the  mind  of  his 
friend.  And  then,  too,  what  was  a  far  deeper 
joy,  literature  and  poetry  began  to  yield  up  their 
secrets  to  him.  Poetry  had  been  to  him  before, 
a  gracious,  soulless  thing  like  a  tree  or  a  flower, 
and  had  been  apprehended  purely  in  its  external 
aspect.  But  now  he  suddenly  saw  the  emotion 
that  burned  beneath,  not  indeed  of  the  love  that 
is  mingled  with  desire — that  had  still  no  mean- 
ing for  the  soul  of  the  boy,  or  only  the  signifi- 
cance of  a  far-off  mystery ;  but  he  perceived  for 
the  first  time  that  it  was  indeed  possible  to  hold 
something  dearer  than  one's  self,  one's  country. 


36  Beside  Still  Waters 

one's  school,  one's  friend — something  large  and 
strong,  that  could  intervene  between  one's  hopes 
and  one's  self. 

Hugh  was  indeed  not  yet,  if  ever,  to  learn  the 
force  of  these  large  words — patriotism,  honour, 
self-surrender,  public  spirit ;  he  remained  an 
individualist  to  the  end.  His  country  never  be- 
came to  him  the  glowing  reality  that  it  means 
for  some.  It  was  dear  because  his  friends,  who 
were  also  Englishmen,  were  dear ;  and  his 
school  for  the  same  reason.  If  he  had  a  friend 
in  the  School  Eleven,  Hugh  would  always  rather 
that  his  friend  should  be  distinguished  than  that 
the  school  should  win.  He  could  not  disen- 
tangle the  personal  fibre,  or  conceive  of  an 
institution,  a  society,  apart  from  the  beings 
of  which  it  was  composed. 

But  his  friendship  broke  in  pieces,  once  and 
for  all,  the  dumb  isolation  in  which  he  had 
hitherto  lived.  It  opened  for  him  the  door  of 
a  larger  and  finer  life,  and  his  soul,  endowed 
with  a  new  elasticity,  seemed  to  leap,  to  run,  to 
climb,  with  a  freshness  and  vigour  that  he  had 
never  before  so  much  as  guessed  at. 

The  closeness  of  this  friendship  gradually 
loosened — or  rather  the  exclusive  companion- 
ship of  its  earlier  stages  grew  less  ;  but  it  seem- 
ed to  Hugh  to  bring  him  into  new  relations 
with  half  the  world.      He  became  a  boy  with 


Discoveries  37 

many  friends.  Other  boys  found  his  quaint 
humour,  his  shrewd  perceptions,  his  courtesy 
and  gentleness  attractive.  He  took  his  new- 
found popularity  with  a  quiet  prudence,  a  good- 
humoured  discretion  that  disarmed  the  most 
critical ;  but  it  was  deeply  delightful  to  the  boy  ; 
he  seemed  to  himself  to  have  passed  out  of  the 
shadow  into  the  sun  and  air.  Life  appeared  to 
be  full  of  gracious  secrets,  delightful  emotions, 
excellent  surprises ;  it  became  a  series  of  small 
joyful  discoveries.  His  intellect  responded  to 
the  stimulus,  and  he  became  aware  that  he  had, 
in  certain  directions,  a  definite  ability  of  which 
he  had  never  suspected  himself.  The  only  part 
of  his  nature  that  was  as  yet  dark  and  sealed 
was  the  religious  spirit.  In  a  world  so  full  of 
interests  and  beauties,  there  was  no  room  for 
God  ;  and  at  this  period  of  his  life,  Hugh,  with 
a  blindness  which  afterwards  amazed  him,  grew 
to  think  of  God  in  the  same  way  that  he 
unconsciously  thought  of  his  father,  as  a  check- 
ing and  disapproving  influence,  not  to  be 
provoked,  but  equally  not  to  be  trusted. 
Hugh  had  no  confidences  with  his  father;  he 
never  felt  sure,  if  he  gave  way  to  easy  and 
unconstrained  talk  with  him,  that  his  father 
would  not  suddenly  discern  something  of  levity 
and  frivolity  in  his  pursuits  ;  and  this  developed 
in    Hugh  a  gentle  hypocrisy,  that  was  indeed 


38  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  shadow  of  his  sympathy,  which  made  him 
divine  what  would  please  his  father  to  talk 
about.  He  found  all  his  old  letters  after  his 
father's  death,  arranged  and  docketed — the 
thought  of  the  unexpected  tenderness  which 
had  prompted  this  care  filled  his  eyes  with 
sudden  tears — but  how  unreal  they  seemed  ! 
There  was  nothing  of  himself  in  them,  though 
they  were  written  with  a  calculated  easiness  of 
expression  which  made  him  feel  ashamed. 

And  it  was  ever  the  same  with  his  idea  of 
God.  ^-He  never  thought  of  Him  as  the  giver 
of  beautiful  things,  as  the  inspirer  of  happy 
friendships ;  he  rather  regarded  Him  as  the 
liberal  dispenser  of  disappointments,  of  rainy 
%y  days,  of   reproofs,  of  failures.     It  was  natural 

enough  in  a  place  like  a  public  school,  where 
the  masters  set  the  boys  an  example  of 
awkward  reticence  on  serious  matters.  Even 
Hugh's  housemaster,  a  conscientious,  devoted 
man,  who,  in  the  time  of  expansion,  was  taken 
into  the  circle  of  his  sincere  friendships — even 
he  never  said  a  serious  word  to  the  boy,  except 
with  a  constrained  and  official  air  as  though  he 
heartily  disliked  the  subject. 

It  is  no  part  of  this  slender  history  to  trace 
the  outer  life  of  Hugh  Neville.  It  must  suffice 
to  say  that,  by  the  time  that  he  rose  to  the  top 
of  the  school,  he  appeared  a  wholesome,  manly, 


The  Second  Harvest  39 

dignified  boy,  quiet  and  unobtrusive  ;  very  few 
suspected  him  of  taking  anything  but  a  simple 
and  conventional  view  of  the  scheme  of  things  ; 
and  indeed  Hugh's  view  at  this  time  was,  if 
not  exactly  conventional,  at  least  unreflective. 
It  was  his  second  time  of  harvest.  He  had 
gathered  in,  in  his  childhood,  a  whole  treasure 
of  beautiful  and  delicate  impressions  of  nature. 
Now  he  cared  little  for  nature,  except  as 
a  quiet  background  for  the  drama  which 
was  proceeding,  and  which  absorbed  all 
his  thoughts.  What  he  was  now  garnering  was 
impressions  of  personalities  and  characters,  the 
odd  perversities  that  often  surprisingly  revealed 
themselves,  the  strange  generosities  and  noble- 
nesses that  sometimes  made  themselves  felt. 
But  an  English  public  school  is  hardly  a  place 
where  these  larger  and  finer  qualities  reveal 
themselves,  though  they  are  indeed  often  there. 
The  whole  atmosphere  is  one  of  decorum, 
authority,  subordination.  Introspection  is  dis- 
regarded and  even  suppressed.  To  be  active, 
good-humoured,  sensible,  is  the  supreme  de- 
velopment. Hugh  indeed  got  nothing  but 
good  out  of  his  school  days  ;  the  simple  code  of 
the  place  gave  him  balance  and  width  of  view, 
and  the  conventionality  which  is  the  danger  of 
these  institutions  never  soaked  into  his  mind  ; 
convention  was  indeed  for  him  like  a  suit  of 


40  Beside  Still  Waters 

bright  polished  armour,  in  which  he  moved 
about  like  a  youthful  knight.  He  left  school 
curiously  immature  in  many  ways.  He  had 
savoir  faire  enough  and  mild  literary  interests, 
but  of  hard  intellectual  robustness  he  had 
nothing.  The  studies  of  the  place  were  indeed 
not  of  a  nature  to  encourage  it.  The  most 
successful  boys  were  graceful  triflers  with 
ancient  literatures ;  to  write  a  polished  and 
vapid  poem  of  Latin  verse  was  Hugh's  high- 
est accomplishment,  and  he  possessed  the  power 
of  reading,  with  moderate  facility,  both  Latin 
and  Greek ;  add  to  this  a  slender  knowledge 
of  ancient  history,  a  slight  savour  of  mathe- 
matics, and  a  few  vague  conceptions  of  science ; 
such  was  the  dainty  intellectual  equipment 
with  which  he  prepared  to  do  battle  with  the 
great  world.  But  for  all  that  he  knew  some- 
thing of  the  art  of  dealing  with  men.  He 
k^  had  learned  to  obey  and  to  command,  to  be  de- 
ferential to  authority  and  to  exact  due  obedi- 
ence, and  he  had  too  a  priceless  treasure  of 
friendship,  of  generous  emotion,  untinged 
with  sentimentality,  that  threw  a  golden  light 
back  upon  the  tall  elms,  the  ancient  towers, 
the  swiftly-running  stream.  It  was  to  come 
back  to  him  in  later  years,  in  reveries  both 
bitter  and  sweet,  how  inexpressibly  dear 
the    place    had    been    to    him  ;  indeed    when 


The  Last  Morning  41 

he  left  his  school,  it  had  simply  transmuted 
itself  into  his  home, — the  Rectory,  with  its 
trees  and  walks,  its  narrower  circle  of  interests, 
having  faded  quite  into  the  background. 

The  last  morning  at  school  was  filled  with  a 
desolation  that  was  almost  an  anguish ;  he  had 
packed,  had  distributed  presents,  had  said  a 
number  of  farewells,  each  thrilled  with  a  pas- 
sionate hope  that  he  would  not  be  quite  forgot- 
ten, but  that  he  might  still  claim  a  little  part  in 
the  place,  in  the  hearts  so  dear  to  him.  He  lay 
awake  half  the  night,  and  in  the  dawn  he 
rose  and  put  his  curtain  aside,  and  looked  out 
on  the  old  buttresses  of  the  chapel,  the  mellow 
towers  of  the  college,  all  in  a  clear  light  of  in- 
finite brightness  and  freshness.  He  could  not 
restrain  his  tears,  and  went  back  to  his  bed 
shaken  with  sobs,  yet  aware  that  it  was  a  luxu- 
rious sorrow  ;  it  was  not  sorrow  for  misspent 
days  ;  there  were  carelessnesses  and  failures  in- 
numerable, but  no  dark  shadows  of  regret ;  it 
was  rather  the  thought  that  the  good  time  was 
over,  that  he  had  not  realised,  as  it  sped  away, 
how  infinitely  sweet  it  had  been,  and  the 
thought  that  it  was  indeed  over  and  done  with, 
the  page  closed,  the  flower  faded,  the  song  silent 
pierced  the  very  core  of  his  heart.  One  more 
last  thrill  of  intense  emotion  was  his ;  his  car- 
riage, as  he  drove  away,  surmounted  the  bridge 


42  Beside  Still  Waters 

over  the  stream  ;  the  old  fields  with  the  silent 
towers  behind  them  lay  beneath  him,  the  home 
of  a  hundred  memories.  There  was  hardly  a 
yard  of  it  all  that  he  could  not  connect  with 
some  little  incident ;  the  troubles,  the  unhap- 
pinesses,  such  as  they  had  been,  were  gone  like  a 
shadow ;  only  the  joy  remained  ;  and  the  mem- 
ory of  those  lost  joys  seemed  like  a  bird  beat- 
ing its  wings  in  the  clear  air,  as  it  flew  to  the 
shadow  of  the  pines.  What  was  to  follow  ?  He 
cared  little  to  think  ;  all  his  mind  was  bent  on 
the  sweet  past.  Something  of  the  mystery  of 
life  came  home  to  him  in  that  moment.  He 
would  have  readily  died  then,  he  felt,  if  a  wish 
could  have  brought  him  death.  Yet  there  was 
nothing  morbid  in  the  thought ;  it  was  only 
that  death  seemed  for  a  moment  a  fitting  con- 
summation for  the  end  of  a  period  that  had 
held  a  richness  and  joy  that  nothing  else  could  \ 
ever  hold  again.  * 


A 


IV 


The  desire  to  be  returning  to  school  with 
which  Hugh  went  up  to  the  university  did  not 
last  long ;  he  paid  a  visit  to  his  housemaster, 
and  saw  with  a  mixture  of  envy  and  amuse- 
ment how  his  juniors  had  all  stepped  quietly 
into  places  which  he  and  his  friends  had  va- 
cated, and  were  enjoying  the  sensation  of  influ- 
ence and  activity.  He  was  courteously  treated 
and  even  welcomed  ;  but  he  felt  all  the  time  like 
the  revenante  of  Christina  Rossetti, — "  I  was  of 
yesterday."  And  then,  too,  a  few  weeks  after 
he  had  settled  at  Cambridge,  in  spite  of  the 
strangeness  of  it  all,  in  spite  of  the  humiliation 
of  being  turned  in  a  moment  from  a  person  of 
dignity  and  importance  into  a  mere  "  freshman," 
he  realised  that  the  freedom  of  the  life,  as  com- 
pared with  the  barrack-life  of  school,  was  irre- 
sistibly attractive.  He  had  to  keep  two  or  three 
engagements  in  the  day,  and  even  about  these 
there  was  great  elasticity.  The  independence, 
the  liberty,  the  kindliness  of  it  all,  came  home 
to  him  with  immense  charm.  And  then,  too, 
the  city  full  of  mediaeval  palaces,  the  quiet 
43 


44  Beside  Still  Waters 

dignity,  thei  ncomparable  beauty  of  everything 
gave  him  a  deep  though  partly  unconscious 
satisfaction.  But  for  the  first  year  he  was 
merely  a  big  schoolboy  in  mind.  The  real 
change  in  his  mental  history  dated  from  his  elec- 
tion to  a  small  society  which  met  weekly,  where 
a  paper  was  read,  and  a  free  discussion  followed. 
Up  to  this  time  Hugh's  religion  had  been  of  a 
purely  orthodox  and  sensuous  description.  He 
V  had  grown  up  in  an  ecclesiastical  atmosphere, 
and  the  ritual  of  church  services,  the  music, 
the  ceremonial,  had  been  all  attractive  to  him. 
As  for  the  dogmatic  side,  he  had  believed  it  un- 
questioningly,  just  as  he  had  believed  in  the 
history  or  the  science  that  had  been  taught  him. 
But  in  this  society  he  met  young  men — and 
older  men  too,  for  several  of  the  Dons  were 
members — who  were  rationalists,  materialists, 
and  definitely  sceptical.  It  dawned  on  his  mind 
for  the  first  time  that,  while  all  other  sciences 
were  of  a  deductive  kind,  endeavouring  to  ap- 
proach principles  from  the  observation  and 
classification  of  phenomena,  from  the  scrutiny 
of  evidence,  that  theology  was  a  science  based 
on  intuitions,  and  dependent  on  assumptions 
which  it  was  impossible  to  test  scientifically. 
The  first  effect  of  this  was  to  develop  a  great 
loyalty  to  his  traditions,  and  almost  the  first 
hard   thinking    he  had  ever  done  was  in   the 


Undergraduate  Days  45 

direction  of  attempting  to  defend  his  faith  on 
scientific  principles.  But  the  attempt  proved 
fruitless;  one  by  one  his  cherished  convictions 
were  washed  away,  though  he  never  owned  it, 
not  even  to  himself.  He  was  regarded  as  a 
model  of  orthodoxy.  He  made  friends  with  a 
young  Fellow  of  his  college,  who  was  an  ad- 
vanced free-thinker  and  set  himself  to  enlighten 
the  undergraduate,  whose  instinctive  sympathy 
gave  him  a  charm  for  older  men,  of  which  he 
was  entirely  unconscious.  They  had  many  se- 
rious talks  on  the  subject  ;  and  his  friend  em- 
ployed a  kind  of  gentle  irony  in  undermining 
as  far  as  he  could  the  foundations  of  what 
seemed  to  him  so  irrational  a  state  of  mind. 
One  particular  conversation  Hugh  remembered 
as  vividly  as  he  remembered  anything.  He  and 
his  friend  had  been  sitting,  on  one  hot  June 
day,  in  the  college  garden,  then  arrayed  in  all 
its  mid-summer  pomp.  They  sat  near  a  great 
syringa  bush,  the  perfume  of  which  shrub  in 
later  years  always  brought  back  the  scene 
before  him  ;  overhead,  among  the  boughs  of  a 
lime-tree,  a  thrush  fluted  now  cheerfully,  now 
pathetically,  like  one  who  was  testing  a  gift  of 
lyrical  improvisation.  The  elder  man,  wearied 
by  a  hard  term's  work,  displayed  a  certain  irri- 
tability of  argument.  Hugh  held  tenaciously 
to  his   points ;  and  at  last,  after  a  silence,  his 


46  Beside  Still  Waters 

friend  turned  to  him  and  said  :  "  Well,  after  all, 
it  reduces  itself  to  this :  you  have  an  interior 
.  witness  to  the  truth  of  what  you  say,  which 
J  \  you  can  honestly  hold  to  be  superior  to  the  ex- 
terior evidences  of  its  improbability?"  Hugh 
smiled  uneasily,  and,  conscious  that  he  was  say- 
ing something  which  he  hoped  rather  than 
knew,  said,  "  I  think  I  have."  The  older  man 
shrugged  his  shoulders  and  said,  "  Then  I  can 
say  no  more  !" — nor  did  he  ever  again  revert  to 
the  question,  from  what  Hugh  thought  was  a 
real  generosity  and  tenderness  of  spirit. 

All  the  time  Hugh  practised  a  species  of  emo- 
tional religion,  attending  the  chapel  services  de- 
voutly, even  willingly  hearing  sermons.  There 
was  a  little  dark  church,  in  a  tiny  courtyard 
hemmed  in  by  houses  and  approached  by  a  nar- 
row passage,  served  by  a  Fellow  of  a  neighbour- 
ing college,  who  preached  gentle  devotional 
discourses  on  Sunday  evenings,  to  which  many 
undergraduates  used  to  go.  These  were  a  great 
help  to  Hugh,  because  they  transferred  religion 
from  the  intellectual  to  the  spiritual  region  ; 
and  thus,  though  he  was  gradually  made  aware 
of  the  weakness  of  his  intellectual  position,  he 
continued  his  religious  life,  in  the  hope  that  the 
door  of  a  mystery  might  some  day  be  opened 
to  him,  and  that  he  might  arrive,  by  an  inner 
process,  at  a    conviction   which    his    intellect 


Strain  47 

could  not  give  him.  But  here  as  elsewhere  he 
was  swayed  by  a  species  of  timidity  and  cau- 
tion. While  on  the  one  hand  his  intellect  told 
him  that  there  was  no  sure  and  incontrovertible 
standing-ground  for  the  orthodoxy  which  he 
professed,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  could  not 
bear  to  relinquish  the  chance  that  certainty 
might  be  found  on  different  lines. 

In  the  middle  of  these  speculations,  he  suf- 
fered a  dark  experience.  He  fell  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  into  ill-health.  His  vitality  and 
nervous  force  were  great,  and  though  soon  de- 
pleted were  soon  recuperated  ;  but  the  new  and 
ardent  interests  of  the  university  had  appealed 
to  him  on  many  sides ;  he  worked  hard,  took 
violent  exercise,  and  filled  up  every  space  of 
time  with  conversation  and  social  enjoyment; 
he  had  no  warning  of  the  strain,  except  an  un- 
accustomed weariness,  of  which  he  made  light, 
drawing  upon  his  nervous  energy  to  sustain  him; 
the  wearier  he  grew,  the  more  keenly  he  flung 
himself  into  whatever  interested  him,  learning, 
as  he  thought,  that  the  way  to  conquer  lassi- 
tude was  by  increased  exertions,  the  feeling 
of  fatigue  always  passing  off  when  he  once 
grew  absorbed  in  a  subject.  He  took  to  sit- 
ting up  late  and  rising  early,  and  he  had 
never  seemed  to  himself  more  alert  and  vig- 
orous in  mind,  when  the  collapse  came.      He 


48  Beside  Still  Waters 

was   suddenly  attacked,  without   warning,  by 
insomnia. 

One  night  he  went  to  bed  late,  and  found  it 
difficult  to  sleep  ;  thoughts  raced  through  his 
brain,  scenes  and  images  forming  and  reforming 
with  inconceivable  rapidity ;  at  last  he  fell 
asleep,  to  awake  an  hour  or  two  later  in 
an  intolerable  agony  of  mind.  His  heart 
beat  thick  and  fast,  and  a  shapeless  horror 
seemed  to  envelop  him.  He  struck  a  light 
and  tried  to  read,  but  a  ghastly  and  poi- 
sonous fear  of  he  knew  not  what  seemed 
to  clutch  at  his  mind.  At  last  he  fell  in- 
to a  broken  sleep  ;  but  when  he  rose  in  the 
morning,  he  knew  that  some  mysterious  evil 
had  befallen  him.  JXhe  had  been  older  and 
wiser,  he  would  have  gone  at  once  to  some 
sensible  physician,  and  a  short  period  of  rest 
would  probably  have  restored  him  ;  but  the 
1  suffering  appeared  to  be  of  so  purely  mental  a 

'  character  that  he  did  not  realise  how  much  of 
it  was  physical.  For  that  day  and  for  many 
days  he  wrestled  with  a  fierce  blackness  of  de- 
pression, which  gradually  concentrated  itself 
upon  his  religious  life  ;  he  became  possessed  by 
a  strong  delusion  that  it  was  a  punishment 
sent  to  him  by  God  for  tampering  with 
freedom  of  thought,  and  little  by  little  a 
deep   moral   anxiety   took  hold  of    him.     He 


n 


Recovery  49 

searched  the  recesses  of  his  heart,  and  ended  by- 
painting  his  whole  hfe  in  the  blackest  of  colours. 
In  the  endeavour  to  find  some  degree  of 
peace,  he  read  the  Scriptures  constantly,  and 
the  marks  he  made  in  his  Bible  against  verses 
which  seemed  to  hold  out  hope  to  him  or  to 
plunge  him  into  despair,  remained  through  the 
after  years  as  signs  of  this  strange  conflict  of 
mind.  His  distress  was  infinitely  increased  by 
attending  some  services  at  a  mission  which 
then  happened  to  be  proceeding  which,  instead 
of  inspiring  him  with  hope,  convinced  him  that 
his  case  was  past  recovery.  For  some  weeks 
he  tasted,  day  by  day,  the  dreary  bitterness  of 
the  cup  of  dark  and  causeless  depression,  and 
laboured  under  an  agonising  dejection  of  spirit. 
This  intensity  of  suff^ering  seemed  to  shake  his 
whole  life  to  its  foundation.  It  made  havoc  of 
his  worK,  of  his  friendships,  of  the  easy  philoso- 
phy of  his  life.  He  began  to  learn  the  distress- 
ing necessity  of  dissembling  his  feelings;  he 
endeavoured  at  great  cost  to  bear  as  uncon- 
cerned a  part  as  before  in  simple  festivities 
and  gatherings,  while  the  clouds  gathered  and 
the  thunder  muttered  in  his  soul.  And  all 
the  time  the  answer  never  came.  Wrestle  as 
he  might,  there  seemed  to  him  an  impenetra- 
ble barrier  between  him  and  the  golden  light 
of  God.     He   learned  in  what   dark  and  cold 


y 


50  Beside  Still  Waters 

isolation  it  is  possible  for  the  soul  to  wander. 
Slowly,  very  slowly,  the  outlook  brightened ;  a 
whole  range  of  new  emotions  opened  before 
him.  The  expressions  of  suffering  and  sorrow, 
that  had  seemed  to  him  before  but  touching 
and  beautiful  phrases,  became  clear  and  vivid. 
His  own  powers  of  expression  became  more 
subtle  and  rich.  And  thus,  though  he  gradu- 
ally drifted  back  into  a  species  of  spiritual 
epicureanism,  he  always  felt  grateful  for  his 
sojourn  in  the  dark  world.  He  did  not  aban- 
don his  religious  profession,  but  he  became 
more  content  to  suspend  his  judgment.  He 
saw  dimly  that  the  mistake  he  had  made  was 
in  hoping  for  anything  of  the  nature  of  cer-^ 
tainty.  He  became  indeed  aware  that  the  only 
persons  who  are  indubitably  in  error  are  those 
who  make  up  their  minds  in  early  life  to  a  the- 
ory about  God  and  the  world,  and  who  from 
that  moment  admit  no  evidence  into  their 
minds  except  the  evidence  that  supports  their 
view.  Hugh  saw  that  life  must  be,  for  him  at 
all  events,  a  pilgrimage,  in  which,  so  long  as 
his  open-mindedness,  his  candour,  his  enthu- 
siasm did  not  desert  him,  there  were  endless 
lessons  to  be  learned  by  the  way.  And  thus  he 
came  back  gratefully  and  wearily  to  his  old 
life,  his  old  friendships.  His  college  became 
to  him  a  very  blessed  place ;  apart  from   the 


A  First  Book  51 

ordinary  social  life,  from  the  work  and  the 
games  which  formed  a  background  and  frame- 
work in  which  relationships  were  set,  he  found 
a  new  region  of  desires,  impulses,  ideas,  through 
which  he  wandered  at  his  will. 

At  this  time  Hugh  could  not  be  said  to  be 
happy.  The  shadows  of  his  dark  moods  often 
hung  about  him,  and  he  bore  in  his  face  the 
traces  of  his  suffering.  He  felt,  too,  that  he 
had  failed  in  his  religious  quest,  though  side 
by  side  with  this  was  the  consciousness  that 
he  had  been  meant  to  fail.  His  religious  views 
were  a  vague  theism,  coupled  with  a  certain 
tendency  to  determinism,  to  which  his  wander- 
ings had  conducted  him.  Christian  determin- 
ism he  called  it,  because,  though  his  old 
unquestioning  view  of  the  historical  evidences 
of  Christianity  had  practically  disappeared,  yet 
his  belief  in  Christian  morality  as  the  highest 
system  that  had  yet  appeared  in  the  world  was 
unshaken.  And  it  was  at  this  time,  just  after 
taking  his  degree,  that  he  wrote  a  little  book,  a 
species  of  imaginary  biography  which  attained, 
to  his  surprise,  a  certain  vogue.  The  book  was 
an  extraordinarily  formless  and  irrelevant  pro- 
duction, written  upon  no  plan,  into  which  he 
shovelled  all  his  vague  speculations  upon  life. 
But  its  charm  was  its  ingenuous  youthful- 
ness  and  emotional  sincerity  ;  and,  although  he 


52  Beside  Still  Waters 

afterwards  came  to  dislike  the  thought  of  the 
book  so  much,  that  at  a  later  date  he  bought  up 
and  destroyed  all  the  copies  of  it  that  remained 
unsold,  yet  for  all  that  it  had  the  value  of  being 
a  perfectly  sincere  revelation  of  personality* 
and  represented  a  real,  if  a  sentimental,  experi- 
ence. The  book  was  severely  reviewed,  but  as 
it  was  published  anonymously  this  gave  Hugh 
little  anxiety  ;  and  so  he  shouldered  his  burden, 
and  went  out  of  the  sheltered  life  into  the  wil- 
derness of  the  world. 


V 

There  will  be  no  attempt  made  here  to  trace 
in  any  detail  the  monotonous  years  of  Hugh's 
professional  life,  because  they  seemed  to  him  to 
have  been  in  one  sense  lost  years  ;  there  was  at 
all  events  no  conscious  growth  in  his  soul.  His 
spirit  seemed  to  him  afterwards  to  have  lain, 
during  those  years,  like  a  worm  in  a  cocoon, 
living  a  bHnd  life.  Externally,  indeed,  they 
were  the  busiest  time  of  his  life.  He  became 
a  hard-worked  official  in  the  Civil  Service.  He 
lived  in  rooms  in  London.  He  spent  his  day 
at  the  office,  he  composed  innumerable  docu- 
ments, he  wrote  endless  letters ;  he  seemed  to 
himself,  in  a  way,  to  be  useful;  he  did  not  dis- 
like the  work,  and  he  found  it  interesting  to 
have  to  get  up  some  detailed  case,  and  to  pre- 
sent it  as  lucidly  as  possible.  "  He  began  his  of- 
ficial life  with  an  intention  of  doing  some  sort 
of  literary  work  as  well;  but  he  found  himself 
incapable  of  any  sustained  effort.  Still,  he  con- 
tinued to  write;  he  did  a  good  deal  of  review- 
ing, and  kept  a  voluminous  diary,  in  which  he 
53 


54  Beside  Still  Waters 

scribbled  anything  that  struck  him,  recording 
scenes,  conversations,  impressions  of  books  and 
people.  This  he  found  was  easy  enough,  but  it 
seemed  impossible  to  complete  anything  or  to 
give  it  a  finished  form.  However,  he  acquired  the 
habit  of  writing,  and  gained  some  facility  of  ex- 
pression. His  short  holidays  were  spent  either 
in  travel,  with  some  like-minded  companion,  or 
in  his  quiet  country  home,  where  he  read  a  large 
number  of  books,  and  lived  much  in  the  open 
air.  But  his  progress  seemed  to  have  been 
purely  intellectual.  He  lost  his  interest  in  ab- 
stract problems  and  in  religious  matters,  which 
retired  to  a  remote  distance,  and  appeared  to  him 
to  be  little  more  than  a  line  of  blue  hills  on  a 
distant  horizon,  as  seen  by  a  man  who  goes  up 
and  down  in  a  city.  He  had  visited  them  once, 
those  hills  of  hope,  and  he  used  to  think  vaguely 
of  visiting  them  again  ;  but  meanwhile  the  im- 
pulse and  the  opportunity  alike  failed  him. 

Yet  in  another  sense  he  did  not  consider  those 
days  lost.  He  gained,  he  used  to  feel  after- 
wards, a  knowledge  of  the  world,  a  knowledge 
of  men,  a  knowledge  of  affairs.  This  contact 
with  realities  took  from  his  somewhat  dreamy 
and  reflective  temperament  its  unpractical 
quality.  If  he  chose  afterwards  to  leave  what 
is  commonly  called  the  world,  it  was  a  deliber- 
ate choice,  founded  on  a  thorough  knowledge 


Practical  Life  55 

of  its  conditions,  and  not  upon  a  timid  and  awk- 
ward ignorance.  He  did  not  leave  the  world 
because  it  frightened  or  bewildered  him,  but  be- 
cause he  did  not  find  in  it  the  things  of  which 
he  was  in  search.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand, 
did  he  quit  the  life  of  affairs  like  a  weakling  or 
an  inefficient  person  who  had  failed  in  it  and 
had  persuaded  himself  that  incompetence  was 
unworldliness.  Hugh  became  a  remarkably  ef- 
ficient official,  alert,  sensible,  practical,  and  pru- 
dent. He  was  marked  out  for  promotion.  He 
was  looked  upon  as  a  man  who  got  on  well  with 
inferiors  and  superiors  alike,  who  could  be 
trusted  to  do  a  complicated  piece  of  business 
well,  who   was  worth  consulting. 

Moreover  he  acquired  a  very  serviceable  and 
lucid  style,  a  power  of  clear  statement,  which 
afterwards  stood  him  in  good  stead.  His  of- 
ficial work  gave  him  the  power  of  seeing  the 
point,  it  gave  him  an  economy  of  words,  an  ef- 
fective briskness  and  solidity  of  presentment ; 
at  the  same  time  his  literary  work  prevented 
him  from  degenerating  into  a  mere  precis- writer. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  days  of 
a  man's  life  are  wasted  and  which  are  fruitful. 
It  is  not  necessarily  the  days  in  which  a  man 
gives  himself  up  to  his  chosen  work  in  which  he 
makes  most  progress.  Sometimes  a  long  inar- 
ticulate period,  when  there  seems  to  a  man  to 


56  Beside  Still  Waters 

be  a  dearth  of  ideas,  a  mental  drought,  acts  as  a 
sort  of  incubation  in  which  a  thought  is  slowly- 
conceived  and  perfected.  Sometimes  a  long 
period  of  repression  stores  force  at  high  pres- 
sure. The  lean  years  are  often  the  prelude, 
even  the  cause,  of  the  years  of  fatness,  when  the 
exhausted  and  overteemed  earth  has  lain  fallow 
and  still,  storing  its  vital  juices. 

Sometimes,  too,  a  disagreeable  duty,  under- 
taken in  heaviness  and  faithfully  fulfilled,  re- 
wards one  by  an  increase  of  mental  strength  and 
agility.  A  painful  experience  which  seems  to 
drown  a  man's  whole  nature  in  depression  and 
sadness,  to  cloud  hope  and  eagerness  alike,  can 
be  seen  in  retrospect  to  have  been  a  period  fer- 
tile in  patience  and  courage. 

Hugh  did  not  find  his  of^cial  life  depres- 
sing, but  very  much  the  reverse.  He  enjoyed 
dealing  with  affairs  and  with  men.  He  used 
sometimes  to  wonder,  half  regretfully,  half  com- 
fortably, at  the  fading  of  his  old  dreams,  in 
which  so  much  that  was  beautiful  was  mingled 
with  so  much  that  was  uneasy.  He  began 
indeed  to  be  somewhat  impatient  of  sentiment 
and  emotion,  and  to  think  with  a  sort  of  com- 
passion of  those  who  allowed  themselves  to  be 
ruled  by  such  motives.  He  did  not  exactly 
adopt  a  conventional  standard,  but  he  found  it 
easier  to  live  on  a  conventional  plane,  until  he 


The  Official  World  57 

even  began  to  be  viewed  by  some  of  his  old 
friends  as  a  man  who  had  adopted  a  conven- 
tional view.  Hugh  indeed  found,  in  his  official 
life,  that  the  majority  of  those  among  whom 
his  lot  was  cast  did  seem  whole-heartedly  con- 
tent to  live  in  a  conventional  world  and  enjoy 
conventional  successes.  Such  men,  and  they 
were  numerous,  never  seemed  disposed  to 
probe  beneath  the  surface  of  things,  unless 
they  were  confronted  by  adverse  circumstances, 
bereavements,  or  indifferent  health  ;  and,  under 
these  conditions,  their  one  aim  seemed  to  be 
to  escape  as  soon  as  possible  from  the  region 
of  discomfort :  they  viewed  reflection  as  a  sort 
of  symptom  of  failing  vitality.  And  so  Hugh 
drifted  to  a  certain  extent  into  feeling  that 
self-questioning  and  abstract  thought  were  a 
species  of  intellectual  ill-health.  One  arrived 
at  no  solution,  any  more  than  one  did  in  the 
case  of  a  toothache ;  the  one  thing  to  do  was 
to  get  rid  of  the  unsatisfactory  conditions  as 
swiftly  as  possible. 

During  this  period  of  his  life  Hugh  made 
many  acquaintances,  but  no  great  friends.  In 
fact  the  idea  of  close  and  intimate  relationship 
with  others  fell  more  and  more  into  the  back- 
ground ;  he  became  interested  rather  in  the 
superficial  and  spectatorial  aspect  of  things  and 
persons.     He  began  to  see  how  differences  of 


58  Beside  Still  Waters 

character  and  temperament  played  into  each 
other,  and  formed  a  resultant  which  merged 
itself  in  the  slow  current  of  affairs.  But  he 
seemed  to  himself  to  be  acquiring  and  sorting 
tangible  experiences,  and  to  have  little  specu- 
lative interest  at  all ;  he  neither  craved  to  make 
or  to  receive  confidences.  The  hours  not  occu- 
pied by  business  were  given  to  social  life  and 
to  reading ;  and  he  was,  or  fancied  himself  to 
be,  perfectly  contented. 

But  as  the  years  went  on,  instead  of  sinking 
into  purely  conventional  ways,  Hugh  found  a 
mood  of  dissatisfaction  growing  upon  him.  He 
found  that  after  his  holidays  he  came  back 
with  increasing  reluctance  to  his  work.  The 
work  itself,  how  unsatisfactory  it  became ! 
Half  the  time  and  energy  of  the  office  seemed 
to  be  spent  on  creating  rather  than  performing 
work ;  an  immense  amount  of  detail  seemed  to 
be  entirely  useless,  and  to  cumber  rather  than 
to  assist  the  conduct  of  the  business  that  was 
important.  Of  course  much  of  it  was  neces- 
sary work  which  had  to  be  done  by  some  one ; 
but  Hugh  began  to  wonder  whether  his  life 
was  well  bestowed  in  carrying  out  a  system  of 
which  so  much  seemed  to  consist  in  dealing 
with  unimportant  minutiae,  and  in  amassing 
immense  records  of  things  that  deserved  only 
to  be  forgotten.     He  found  himself  reflecting 


Drudgery  59 

that  life  was  short,  and  that  he  tended  to  spend  / 
the  greater  part  of  his  waking  hours  in  matters 
that  were  essentially  trivial.  He  began  to 
question  whether  there  was  any  duty  for  him 
in  the  matter  at  all,  and  by  what  law,  human 
or  divine,  a  man  was  bound  to  spend  his  days 
in  work  in  the  usefulness  of  which  he  did  not 
wholly  believe. 

Living,  as  he  did,  an  inexpensive  life  of  great 
simplicity,  he  had  contrived  to  save  a  certain 
amount  of  money,  and  he  was  surprised  to  find 
how  fast  it  accumulated.  When  he  had  been 
some  fifteen  years  in  his  of^ce,  a  great-uncle  of 
his  died,  leaving  Hugh  quite  unexpectedly  a 
sum  of  a  few  thousand  pounds,  which,  together 
with  his  savings,  gave  him  a  small  but  secure 
competence,  as  large,  in  fact,  as  the  income  he 
was  accustomed  to  spend. 

Even  so,  he  did  not  at  once  decide  to  leave  his 
official  career.  It  seemed  to  him  at  first  that  the 
abandonment  of  a  chosen  profession  ought  not 
to  depend  upon  the  fact  that  one  could  live  in- 
dependently without  it ;  he  felt  that  there  ought 
to  be  a  better  reason  for  pursuing  a  certain  course 
of  life  than  mere  livelihood.  But  his  accession 
of  means  enabled  Hugh  to  give  up  all  literary 
hack-work,  such  as  reviewing,  which  had  long 
been  somewhat  of  a  burden  to  him ;  he  had 
found  himself  of  late  agreeing  more  and  more 


6o  Beside  Still  Waters 

with  William  Morris's  doctrine,  that  there  was 
something  degrading  in  a  man's  printing  his 
opinions  about  other  persons'  books  for  money  ; 
and  he  now  began  to  indulge  in  more  ambitious 
literary  schemes.  This  involved  him  in  a  good 
deal  of  reading  ;  but  he  found  himself  thwarted 
at  every  turn  by  the  pressure  of  ofificial  busi- 
ness. He  found  that  his  reading  had  to  be  done 
over  and  over  again  ;  that  he  would  master  a 
section  of  his  subject,  and  then  for  lack  of  time 
be  compelled  to  put  it  aside,  until  it  had  passed 
out  of  his  mind  and  needed  to  be  recovered. 

At  last  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  take 
the  first  obvious  opportunity  that  offered  itself 
to  end  his  official  work.  It  came  in  the  form  of 
an  offer  which,  a  year  or  two  before,  would  have 
gratified  his  ambition,  and  which  would  have 
bound  him  without  question  to  official  work  for 
the  rest  of  his  active  life  ;  he  was  offered  in  very 
complimentary  terms  the  headship  of  a  newly 
created  department.  He  not  only  declined  it, 
to  the  surprise  and  disappointment  of  his  chief, 
but  he  resigned  his  appointment  at  the  same 
time.  He  had  a  somewhat  painful  interview 
with  the  head  of  the  office,  who  told  him  that  he 
was  sacrificing  a  brilliant  and  honourable  career 
at  the  very  moment  when  it  was  opening  before 
him.  Hugh  did  not,  however,  hesitate;  he  found 
it  a  difficult  task  to  explain  to  his  superior  ex- 


Resignation  6i 

actly  what  he  intended  to  do,  who  expressed  a 
good-humoured  contempt  for  the  idea  of  mak- 
ing a  mild  literary  experiment,  at  an  age  when 
literary  success  seemed  unattainable.  The  great 
man,  indeed,  one  of  whose  virtues  was  an  easy 
frankness,  said  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  absurd 
as  if  Hugh  had  expressed  the  intention  of  de- 
voting the  rest  of  his  life  to  practising  the  piano 
or  drawing  in  water-colours.  Hugh  was  quite 
aware  that  his  literary  position  was  of  a  dilet- 
tante kind,  and  that  he  had  done  nothing  to 
justify  the  hope  that  success  in  literature  was 
within  his  reach.  He  pleaded  that  the  service  of 
the  State  was  encumbered  by  a  mass  of  unneces- 
sary detail,  in  the  usefulness  of  which  he  did  not 
believe.  The  Secretary  said  that  of  course  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  drudgery,  but  that  the  same 
applied  to  most  lives  of  practical  usefulness ; 
and  he  pointed  out  that  by  accepting  the  new 
appointment,  Hugh  would  be  set  free  to  attend 
to  work  of  a  more  original  and  important  kind. 
But  Hugh  felt  himself  sustained  by  a  curiously 
inflexible  determination,  for  which  he  could  not 
wholly  account ;  he  merely  said  that  he  had  con- 
sidered the  question  in  all  its  bearings,  and  that 
his  mind  was  made  up ;  upon  which  the  Secre- 
tary shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  said  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  over-persuade  him  ;  and  that  in- 
deed, if  Hugh  accepted  the  new  post  merely  in 


62  Beside  Still  Waters 

deference  to  persuasion,  it  would  be  good  nei- 
ther for  himself  nor  the  service.  He  added  a  few 
conventional  words  to  the  effect  that  the  ofifice 
would  be  sorry  to  lose  so  courteous  and  compe- 
tent an  official;  and  Hugh  recognised  that  his 
chief,  with  the  instinct  of  a  thoroughly  practical 
man,  had  dismissed  him  from  his  thoughts,  as 
an  entirely  fantastic  and  wrong-headed  person. 
His  retirement  was  not  unattended  by  pain  ; 
he  found  that  the  announcement  of  his  depart- 
ure aroused  more  surprise  and  sorrow  among 
his  colleagues  than  he  had  expected ;  it  was 
depressing,  too,  to  say  good-bye  to  the  well- 
known  faces,  the  familiar  rooms,  the  routine 
that  formed  so  substantial  a  part  of  his  life. 
But  he  found  in  himself  a  wholly  unanticipated 
courage,  and  even  a  secret  glee  at  the  prospect 
of  his  release,  which  revealed  to  him  how  con- 
genial it  was.  He  cleared  up  the  accumulations 
of  years;  he  made  his  adieus  with  much  real 
emotion ;  yet  it  was  a  solemn  rather  than  a 
sad  moment  when  he  put  his  papers  away  for 
th  e  last  time,  and  handed  over  the  keys  of 
the  familiar  boxes  to  his  successor.  He  went 
slowly  down  the  stairs  alone,  and  stopped  at 
the  door  to  say  good-bye  to  the  old  attendant, 
whom  he  never  remembered  to  have  seen  absent 
from  his  place.  The  old  man  said,  "  Well,  sir, 
I  did  think  as  you  would  not  have  left  us  yet." 


Retirement  63 

Hugh  replied,  smiling,  "Well,  we  have  all  to 
move  on  when  our  time  comes,  and  I  hope  I 
leave  only  friends  behind  me."  The  old  man 
seemed  much  affected  by  this,  and  said,  *  Yes, 
sir,  we  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  whenever  you 
can  look  in  upon  us " — and  then  with  much 
fumbling  drew  out  and  presented  a  small  pen- 
wiper to  Hugh,  which  he  had  made  with  his 
own  hands — "and  God  bless  you,  sir!"  he 
added,  with  an  apology  for  the  liberty  he  was 
taking.  This  was  the  only  incident  in  his 
leave-taking  which  affected  Hugh  to  tears ;  but 
they  were  tears  of  emotion,  not  of  regret.  He 
was  looking  on  to  the  new  life,  and  not  back 
to  the  old  ;  and  as  he  went  out  into  the  foggy 
air,  and  along  the  familiar  pavement,  there  was 
nothing  in  his  heart  that  called  him  back.  He 
was  grateful  for  all  the  kindness  and  affection 
of  his  friends,  and  the  thought  that  he  held 
a  place  in  their  hearts.  What  he  hoped,  he 
hardly  knew ;  but  the  release  from  the  burden 
of  the  tedious  and  useless  work  was  like  that 
which  Christian  experienced,  when  the  burden 
rolled  from  his  back  into  the  grave  that  stood 
in  the  bottom,  and  he  saw  it  no  more. 


VI 


One  of  the  best  things  that  Hugh's  profes- 
sional hfe  had  brought  him  was  a  friendship 
with  his  father;  their  relations  had  been  in- 
creasingly tense  all  through  the  undergraduate 
days;  if  Hugh  had  not  been  of  a  superficially 
timorous  temperament,  disliking  intensely  the 
atmosphere  of  displeasure,  disapproval,  or  mis- 
understanding, among  those  with  whom  he 
lived,  there  would  probably  have  been  sharp 
collisions.  His  father  did  not  realise  that  the 
boy  was  growing  up  ;  active  and  vigorous  him- 
self, he  felt  no  diminution  of  energy,  no  sense 
of  age,  and  he  forgot  that  the  relations  of  the 
home  circle  were  insensibly  altering.  He  took 
an  intense  interest  in  his  son's  university  career, 
but  interfered  with  his  natural  liberty,  expect- 
ing him  to  spend  all  his  vacations  at  home,  and 
discouraging  visits  to  houses  of  which  he  did 
not  approve.  He  was  very  desirous  that  Hugh 
should  ultimately  take  orders,  and  was  nerv- 
ously anxious  that  he  should  come  under  no 
sceptical  influences.  The  result  was  that  Hugh 
64 


His  Father's  Friendship        65 

simply  excluded  his  father  from  his  confidence, 
telling  him  nothing  except  the  things  of  which 
he  knew  he  would  approve,  and  never  asking 
his  advice  about  matters  on  which  he  felt  at  all 
keenly ;  because  he  knew  that  his  father  would 
tend  to  attempt  to  demolish,  with  a  certain 
bitterness  and  contempt,  the  speculations  in 
which  he  indulged,  and  would  be  shocked  and 
indignant  at  the  mere  beckoning  of  ideas 
which  Hugh  found  to  be  widely  entertained 
even  by  men  whom  he  respected  greatly.  His 
father's  faith  indeed,  subtle  and  even  beautiful 
as  it  was,  was  built  upon  axioms  which  it 
seemed  to  him  a  kind  of  puerile  perversity  to 
deny.  Religion  came  to  him  in  definite  and 
traditional  channels,  and  to  seek  it  in  other 
directions  appeared  to  him  a  species  of  wanton 
profanity. 

The  result  was  an  entire  divergence  of 
thought,  of  which  Hugh  was  fully  conscious ; 
but  it  did  not  seem  to  him  that  there  was  any- 
thing to  be  gained  by  candid  avowal.  He  was 
at  one  with  his  father  in  the  essential  doctrines 
of  Christianity;  and  being  by  nature  of  a  specu- 
lative turn,  he  considered  the  discrimination  of 
religious  truth,  the  criticism  of  religious  tradi- 
tion, to  be  rather  a  stimulating  and  agreeable 
mental  pastime  than  a  question  of  ethics  or 
morals.     Thus  he  was  led  into  practising  a  kind 


66  Beside  Still  Waters 

of  hypocrisy  with  his  father  in  matters  of  relig- 
ion. He  felt  that  it  was  not  worth  while  engaging 
in  argument  of  a  kind  that  would  have  distressed 
his  father  and  irritated  himself,  upon  matters 
which  he  believed  to  be  intellectual,  while  his 
father  believed  them  to  be  ethical.  Hugh  often 
pondered  over  this  condition  of  things,  which 
he  felt  to  be  unsatisfactory,  but  no  solution  oc- 
curred to  him ;  he  said  to  himself  that  he  valued 
domestic  peace  rather  than  a  frank  understand- 
ing upon  matters  to  which  he  and  his  father  at- 
tached a  wholly  different  value.  But  meantime 
he  drifted  further  and  further  away  from  the 
ecclesiastical  attitude,  though  his  fondness  for 
ecclesiastical  art  and  ceremony  effectually  dis- 
guised from  his  father  the  speculative  move- 
ment of  his  mind. 

But  his  independent  entrance  upon  his  pro- 
fessional life  had  given  him  an  emancipation  of 
which  he  was  not  at  first  fully  conscious.  He 
did  not  act  from  set  purpose,  and  only  became 
aware  later  that  if  he  had  thought  out  a  diplo- 
matic scheme  of  action,  he  could  not  have  de- 
vised a  more  effectual  one.  He  simply  made 
his  own  arrangements  for  the  holidays ;  he 
travelled,  he  paid  visits  ;  he  came  home  when  it 
was  convenient  to  him  ;  but  the  result  was  that 
in  the  early  years  of  his  professional  life  he  was 
very  little  at  home.     Hugh  supposed  afterwards 


His  Father's  Friendship        67 

that  his  father  must  have  felt  this  deeply  ;  but 
he  did  not  show  it,  except  that  suddenly,  al- 
most in  a  day  and  an  hour,  Hugh  became  aware 
that  their  relations  had  completely  altered.  He 
found  himself  met  with  a  deference,  a  courteous 
equality  which  he  had  never  before  experienced. 
Instead  of  giving  him  advice,  his  father  began 
to  ask  it,  and  consulted  him  freely  on  matters 
which  he  had  hitherto  kept  entirely  in  his  own 
hands.  The  result  was  at  once  an  extraordi- 
nary expansion  of  affection  and  admiration  on 
Hugh's  part.  He  realised,  as  he  had  never 
done  before,  the  richness  and  energy  of  his 
father's  mind  within  certain  limits,  his  practical 
ability,  his  highmindedness,  his  amazing  moral 
purity.  Once  freed  from  the  subservient  rela- 
tion imposed  upon  him  by  habit,  Hugh  saw  in 
his  father  a  man  of  real  genius  and  effectiveness. 
The  effectiveness  he  had  hitherto  taken  as  amat- 
ter  of  course ;  he  had  thought  of  his  father  as  effec- 
tive in  the  same  way  that  he  had  thought  of  him 
as  severe,  dignified,  handsome — it  had  seemed  a 
part  of  himself;  but  he  now  began  to  compare 
his  father  with  other  men,  and  to  realise  that  he 
was  not  only  an  exceptional  man,  but  a  man  with 
a  rare  intensity  of  nature,  whose  whole  life  was 
lived  on  a  plane  and  in  an  atmosphere  that  was 
impossible  to  easy,  tolerant,  conventional  na- 
tures.    He   realised    his    father's   capacity    for 


68  Beside  Still  Waters 

leadership,  his  extraordinary  and  unconscious 
influence  over  all  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact, the  burning  glow  of  his  fervid  tempera- 
ment, his  scorn  and  detestation  of  all  that  was 
vile  or  mean.  It  did  not  at  once  become  easier 
for  Hugh  to  speak  freely  of  what  was  passing 
in  his  own  mind ;  indeed  he  realised  that  his 
father  was  one  of  those  whose  prejudices  were 
so  strong,  and  whose  personal  magnetism  was 
so  great,  that  not  even  his  oldest  and  most  in- 
timate friends  could  afford  to  express  opposi- 
tion to  him  in  matters  on  which  he  felt  deeply. 
But  Hugh  saw  that  he  must  accept  it  as  an  un- 
alterable condition  of  his  father's  nature,  and 
realising  this  he  felt  that  he  could  concede  him 
an  honour  and  a  homage,  due  to  one  of  com- 
manding moral  greatness,  which  he  had  never 
willingly  conceded  to  his  paternal  authority. 
The  result  was  a  great  and  growing  happiness. 
Sometimes  indeed  Hugh  made  mistakes:  be- 
guiled by  the  increasing  freedom  of  their  inter- 
course, he  allowed  himself  to  discuss  lightly 
matters  on  which  he  could  hardly  believe  that 
any  one  could  feel  passionately.  But  a  real 
and  deep  friendship  sprang  up  between  the  two, 
and  Hugh  was  at  times  simply  astonished  at 
the  confidence  which  his  father  reposed  in  him. 
There  were  still,  indeed,  days  when  the  tension 
was  felt.     But    Hugh  became   aware  that  his 


His  Father's  Friendship        69 

father  made  strong  efforts  to  banish  his  own  de- 
pression and  melancholy  when  he  was  with  his 
son,  that  it  might  not  cloud  their  intercourse. 
Signs  such  as  these  came  home  to  Hugh  with 
intense  pathos,  and  evoked  an  affection  which 
became  one  of  the  real  forces  of  his  hfe.  His 
father  had  consented  to  Hugh's  entering  the 
Civil  Service,  but  he  continued  to  hope  that  his 
son  might  ultimately  decide  to  take  orders  ;  he 
had  cherished  that  hope  from  Hugh's  earliest 
years,  and  seeing  Hugh's  fondness  for  the  ex- 
ternals of  religion,  while  he  knew  nothing  of  his 
mental  attitude,  he  still  believed  and  prayed 
that  Hugh  might  be  led  to  enter  the  service  of 
the  Church.  Hugh  realised  that  this  was  still 
his  father's  deep  preoccupation,  and  perceived 
that  he  avoided  any  direct  expression  of  his 
wishes,  exercising  only  a  transparent  diplomacy 
which  was  infinitely  touching — so  touching  in- 
deed that  Hugh  sometimes  debated  within  him- 
self whether  he  might  not  so  far  sacrifice  his 
own  bent,  which  was  more  and  more  directed  to 
the  maintenance  of  an  independent  attitude,  in 
order  to  give  his  father  so  deep  and  lasting  a 
delight.  But  he  was  forced  to  decide  that  the 
motive  was  not  cogent  enough,  and  that  to 
adopt  a  definite  position,  involving  the  suppres- 
sion of  some  of  his  strongest  convictions,  for 
the  sake  of  giving  one  he  loved  a  pleasure,  was 


JO  Beside  Still  Waters 

like  exposing  the  ark  to  the  risks  of  battle.  He 
knew  well  enough  that  if  he  had  declared  his 
full  mind  on  the  subject  to  his  father,  the  ex- 
tent to  which  he  felt  forced  to  suspend  his 
judgment  in  religious  matters,  his  father  would 
have  desired  the  step  no  longer. 

With  the  rest  of  the  family  circle,  in  these 
years,  Hugh's  relations  were  affectionate  but 
colourless.  With  his  natural  reticence,  he 
shrank  from  speaking  of  the  thoughts  which 
predominated  in  his  mind ;  especially  while 
there  was  an  abundance  of  interesting  and  un- 
controversial  topics  which  afforded  endless  sub- 
jects of  conversation  ;  and  the  tendency  to  leave 
matters  alone  which,  if  debated,  might  have 
caused  distress,  was  heightened  by  the  death  of 
one  of  Hugh's  sisters. 

She  was  a  girl  of  a  very  deep,  loyal,  and 
generous  nature,  full  of  activities  and  benevo- 
lence, and  at  the  same  time  of  a  reflective  order 
of  mind.  She  had  been  a  strong  central  force 
in  the  family;  and  Hugh  found  it  strange  to 
realise,  after  her  death,  that  each  member  of  the 
family  had  felt  themselves  in  a  peculiar  relation 
to  her,  as  the  object  of  her  special  preoccupation. 
The  event,  which  was  strangely  sudden,  stirred 
Hugh  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul.  The  vacant 
chair,  the  closed  room,  the  sudden  cessation  of 
a  hundred   activities,  brought  sharply   to  his 


The  Dark  Mystery  71 

mind  the  dark  mystery  of  death.  That  a  door 
should  thus  have  been  suddenly  opened,  and 
one  of  the  familiar  band  bidden  to  enter,  and 
that  the  loving  heart  that  had  left  them  should 
be  unable  to  communicate  the  slightest  hint  of 
its  presence  to  those  who  desired  her  in  vain, 
seemed  to  him  a  horrible  and  desperate  thing. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  terrible  secrets 
of  identity  opened  before  his  eyes.  He  could 
not  bring  himself  to  believe  in  the  extinction  of 
so  vital,  so  individual  a  force,  but  he  recognised 
with  a  mournful  terror  that,  so  far  as  scientific 
evidence  went,  the  whole  preponderating  force 
of  facts  tended  to  prove  that  the  individuality 
was,  if  not  extinguished,  at  least  merged  in  some 
central  tide  of  life,  and  that  the  only  rebutting 
evidence  was  the  cry  of  the  burdened  heart 
that  dared  not  believe  a  possibility  so  stern, 
so  appalling.  He  wrestled  dumbly  and  darkly 
against  these  sad  convictions,  and  how  many 
times,  in  miserable  solitude,  did  he  send  out  a 
wistful  prayer  that,  if  it  were  possible,  some 
hint,  some  slender  vision,  might  be  granted  him 
as  a  proof  that  one  so  dear,  so  desired,  so  mo- 
mently missed,  was  still  near  him  in  spirit. 
But  no  answer  came  back  from  the  dark  thresh- 
old, and,  leaning  in,  he  could  but  discern  a  land- 
scape of  shapeless  horror,  in  which  no  live  thing 
moved  by  the  shore  of  a  grey  and  weltering  sea. 


72  Beside  Still  Waters 

Little  by  little  a  dim  hint  came  to  comfort  him ; 
he  thought  of  all  the  unnumbered  generations 
of  men  who  had  lived  their  brief  lives  in  sun 
and  shade,  full  of  hopes  and  schemes  and  af- 
fections. One  by  one  they  had  lain  down  in 
the  dust.  In  the  face  of  so  immutable,  so  ab- 
solute a  law,  it  seemed  that  rebellion  and  ques- 
tioning were  fruitless.  God  gives,  God  takes 
away,  He  makes  and  mars.  He  creates,  He  dis- 
solves; and  if  we  cannot  trust  the  Will  that 
bids  us  be  and  not  be,  what  else  in  this  shifting 
world,  full  of  dark  secrets,  can  we  trust?  It 
cannot  be  said  that  this  thought  comforted 
Hugh,  but  it  sustained  him.  He  learned  again  to 
suspend  his  hopes  and  fears,  and  to  leave  all 
confidently  in  the  hands  of  God  ;  and  time,  too, 
had  its  healing  balm ;  the  bitter  loss,  by  soft 
gradations,  became  a  sweet  and  loving  memory, 
and  a  memory  that  sweetened  the  thought  of 
the  dark  world  whither  too  he  must  sometime 
turn  his  steps.  For  if  indeed  our  individuality 
endures,  he  could  realise  that  one  who  loved  so 
purely,  so  loyally,  so  intensely,  would  not  fail 
him  on  the  other  side  of  the  silent  river,  but 
would  welcome  him  with  unabated  love,  per- 
haps only  feeling  a  tender  wonder  that  those 
who  yet  had  the  passage  to  make  should  find 
it  to  be  so  terrible,  so  unendurable. 


VII 

The  question  which,  when  he  resigned  his 
appointment,  occupied  Hugh,  was  where  he 
should  live.  He  would  have  preferred  to  settle 
in  the  country,  loving,  as  he  did,  silence  and 
pure  air,  woods  and  fields.  He  had  never  liked 
London,  though  it  had  become  endurable  to 
him  by  familiarity.  He  decided,  however,  that 
at  first,  at  all  events,  he  must  if  possible  find  a 
place  where  he  could  see  a  certain  amount  of 
society,  and  where  he  would  be  able  to  obtain 
the  books  he  expected  to  need.  He  was 
afraid  that  if  he  transferred  himself  at  once  to 
the  country  he  might  sink  into  a  morbid  seclu- 
sion, as  he  had  no  strong  sociable  impulses. 
His  thoughts  naturally  turned  to  his  own 
university.  He  thought  that  if  he  could  find  a 
small  house  at  Cambridge,  suitable  to  his  means, 
he  would  be  able  to  have  as  much  or  as  little 
society  as  he  desired,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
would  be  on  the  edge  of  the  country.  More- 
over the  flat  fenland,  which  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  unattractive,  had  always  possessed 

73 


74  Beside  Still  Waters 

a  peculiar  charm  for  Hugh.  He  spent  some 
time  at  home,  revelling  in  his  freedom,  while  he 
made  inquiries  for  a  house.  The  thought  of  a 
long  perspective  of  days  before  him,  without 
fixed  engagements,  without  responsibilities,  so 
that  he  could  come  and  go  as  he  pleased,  filled 
him  with  delight. 

His  father  had  not  at  all  disapproved  of  the 
decision.  Hugh  had  shown  him  that  he  was 
pecuniarily  independent ;  but  he  was  aware 
that  in  the  background  of  his  father's  mind  lay 
the  hope  that,  even  so  late  in  life,  he  might  still 
be  drawn  to  enter  the  ministry  of  the  Church. 
At  all  events  he  thought  that  Hugh  might  gain 
some  academical  position  ;  and  thus  he  gave  a 
decidedly  cordial  assent  to  the  change,  only 
expressing  a  hope  that  Hugh  would  not  make  a 
hurried  decision. 

Hugh  did  not  delay  to  sketch  out  a  plan  of 
work.  But  whereas  before  he  had  worked  only 
when  he  could,  he  now  found  himself  in  the 
blessed  position  of  being  able  to  work  when  he 
would.  Instead  of  becoming,  as  he  had  feared, 
desultory,  he  found  that  his  work  exercised  a 
strong  attraction  over  him — indeed  that  it 
became  for  him,  with  an  amazing  swiftness,  the 
one  pursuit  in  the  world  about  which  exercise, 
food,  amusement,  grouped  themselves  as 
secondary  accessories.     This  was  no  doubt  in 


Liberty  75 

part  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
acquired  a  habit  of  regular  work,  a  craving  for 
steady  occupation  ;  but  it  was  also  far  more  due 
to  the  fact  that  Hugh  had  really,  and  almost  as 
though  by  accident,  discovered  his  ruling 
passion.  He  was  in  truth  a  writer,  a  word- 
artist  ;  his  only  fear  was  whether,  in  the  hard 
work  of  unmitigated  years  of  specified  toil,  he 
had  not  perhaps  lost  the  requisite  mental 
agility,  whether  he  had  not  failed  to  acquire 
the  elastic  use  of  words,  the  almost  instinctive 
sense  of  colour  and  motion  in  language,  which 
can  only  be  won  through  constant  and  even 
unsuccessful  use.  That  remained  to  be  seen ; 
and  meanwhile  his  plans  settled  themselves. 
He  found  a  small,  picturesque,  irregularly-built 
house  crushed  in  between  the  road  and  the  river, 
which  in  fact  dipped  its  very  feet  in  the  stream  ; 
from  its  quaint  oriel  and  gallery,  Hugh  could 
look  down,  on  a  bright  day,  into  the  clear 
heart  of  the  water,  and  survey  its  swaying  reeds 
and  poising  fish.  The  house  was  near  the 
centre  of  the  town  ;  yet  from  its  back  windows 
it  overlooked  a  long  green  stretch  of  rough 
pasture-land,  now  a  common,  and  once  a  fen, 
which  came  like  a  long  green  finger  straight 
into  the  very  heart  of  the  town.  There  was 
a  great  sluice  a  few  yards  away,  through 
which  the  river  poured    into    a  wide  reach  of 


76  Beside  Still  Waters 

stream,  so  that  the  air  was  always  musical 
with  the  sound  of  falling  water,  the  murmur 
of  which  could  be  heard  on  still  nights 
through  the  shuttered  and  curtained  case- 
ments. The  sun,  on  the  short  winter  days, 
used  to  set,  in  smouldering  glory,  behind 
the  long  lines  of  leafless  trees  which  termi- 
nated the  fen  ;  and  in  summer  the  little 
wooded  peninsula  that  formed  part  of  a 
neighbouring  garden  was  rich  in  leaf,  and 
loud  with  the  song  of  birds.  The  little 
house  had,  in  fact,  the  poetical  quality,  and 
charmed  the  eye  and  ear  at  every  turn,  the 
whisper  of  the  little  weir  outside  seeming  to 
brim  with  sweet  contented  sound  every  corner 
of  the  quaint,  irregular,  and  low-ceiled  rooms, 
with  their  large  beams  and  dark  corners. 

So  Hugh  settled  here  after  his  emancipation, 

and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  realised  what  it 

meant  to  be  free.     He  woke  day  after  day  to 

the  sensation  that  he  had  no  engagements,  no 

ties;  that  he  could  arrange  his  hours  of  work 

and  liberty  as  he  liked,  go  where  he  would  ;  that 

■  no  person  would  question  his  right,  interfere 

j  with  his  independence,  or  even  take  the  least 

'  interest  in  his  movements.     His  freedom  was 

at  first,  to  his  dismay,  something  of  a  burden  to 

him;  he  had  been  used  to  ceaseless  interruptions, 

multifarious  engagements  ;  the  one  struggle,  the 


Cambridge  77 

one  preoccupation,  had  been  to  win  a  few  hours 
for  solitude,  for  reflection,  for  literary  work. 
But  now  that  the  whole  of  time  was  at  his  dis- 
posal, he  found  himself  unable  to  concentrate 
his  mind,  to  apply  himself.  He  had  several 
friends  at  Cambridge ;  but  the  strain  of  making 
new  acquaintances,  of  familiarising  himself  with 
the  temperaments  and  the  tastes  of  the  new  set 
of  personalities,  was  very  great.  It  was  impos- 
sible for  Hugh  to  enter  upon  neutral,  civil, 
colourless  relations.  He  could  not  meet  a  man 
or  a  woman  without  endeavouring  to  find  some 
common  ground  of  sympathy  and  understand- 
ing. And  this  was  made  more  difficult  to  him 
at  Cambridge  by  the  swift  monotony  in  which 
the  years  had  flowed  away.  Time  seemed  to 
have  stood  still  there  in  those  twenty  years. 
Many  of  the  men  that  he  remembered  seemed 
still  to  be  there,  contentedly  pursuing  the  cus- 
tomary round,  circulating  from  their  rooms  to 
Hall,  from  Hall  to  Combination-room,  and  back 
again.  Thus  Hugh,  picking  up  the  thread  where 
he  had  laid  it  down,  appeared  to  himself  to  be 
youthful,  inexperienced,  insignificant ;  while  to 
those  who  made  his  acquaintance  he  seemed  to 
be  a  grave  and  serious  man  of  affairs,  with  a 
standing  in  the  world  and  a  definite  line  of  his 
own. 

Thus  the  first  months  were  months  of  some 


78  Beside  Still  Waters 

depression.  Not  that  he  would  have  gone  back 
if  he  could,  or  that  he  ever  doubted  of  the  wis- 
dom, the  inevitableness  of  the  step ;  even  in 
moments  of  dejection  it  cheered  him  to  feel 
that  he  was  not  eating  his  heart  out  in  fruitless 
work,  or  solemnly  performing  a  duty,  which 
relied  for  seriousness  upon  its  outer  place  in  a 
settled  scheme,  rather  than  upon  any  intrinsic 
value  that  it  possessed.  But  his  life  soon  settled 
down  into  a  steady  routine.  He  gave  his  morn- 
ings to  letters,  business,  and  reading  ;  his  after- 
noons to  exercise  ;  his  evenings  to  writing  and 
academical  sociabilities.  His  aim  began  gradu- 
ally to  be  to  make  the  most  of  the  sacred  hours 
of  the  late  afternoon,  when  his  mind  was  most 
alert,  and  when  he  seemed  to  possess  the  easiest 
mastery  of  language.  He  consecrated  those 
hours  to  his  chosen  work,  and  it  was  his  object 
to  fit  himself,  as  by  a  species  of  training,  to 
make  the  most  and  best  of  that  good  time, 
which  lay  like  gold  among  the  debris  of  the  day. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  the  solid,  unimaginative 
work  of  the  morning  cleared  away  a  certain 
heaviness  and  sluggishness  of  apprehension, 
which  was  the  shadow  of  sleep  ;  that  the  open 
air,  the  active  movement  of  the  afternoon,  re- 
moved the  clumsier  and  grosser  insistence  of 
the  body  ;  and  that  there  resulted  a  frame  of 
mind,  when  the  imagination  was  lively  and  alert, 


Literary  Work  79 

and  when  the  willing  brain  served  out  its  stores 
with  a  cordial  rapidity.  There  was  a  danger 
perhaps  of  selfish  absorption  in  such  a  scheme 
of  life ;  but  at  least  no  artist  ever  more  sedu- 
lously cultivated  the  best  and  most  fruitful 
conditions  for  the  practice  of  his  art.  Hugh 
grew  to  have  an  almost  morbid  sense  of  the 
value  of  time.  Interruptions,  social  entertain-  ] 
ments,  engagements  which  interfered  with  his 
programme,  he  resented  and  resolutely  avoided.  } 
He  became  indeed  aware  that  other  people,  to 
whom  the  value  of  his  work  was  not  apparent, 
were  apt  to  regard  the  jealous  arrangement  of 
his  hours  as  the  mere  whim  of  a  self-absorbed 
dilettante.  But  that  troubled  Hugh  little,  be- 
cause he  realised  that  his  only  hope  of  doing 
sound  and  worthy  work  lay  in  making  a  sacri- 
fice of  the  ordinary  and  trifling  occupations  of 
life,  of  forming  definite  habits,  for  the  want  of 
which  so  many  capable  and  brilliant  persons 
sink  into  unproductiveness. 

Yet  the  life  had  a  danger  which  Hugh  did 
not  at  first  perceive.  It  tended  to  concentrate 
his  thoughts  too  much  upon  himself.  His  writ- 
ings took  a  personal  colour,  a  warm,  self-regard- 
ing light,  of  which  his  candid  friends  did  not 
hesitate  to  make  him  aware.  The  bitterness  of 
the  slow  progress  of  a  book,  and  of  the  long 
time  that  must  elapse  between  its   execution 


8o  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  its  appearance,  is  that  the  readers  of  it  tend 
to  consider  that  it  reflects  the  exact  contempo- 
rary thought  of  its  writer.  Hugh's  mind  and 
personality  grew  fast  in  those  days ;  and  by  the 
time  that  his  friends  were  criticising  a  book  as 
the  outcome  of  his  immediate  thought,  he  was 
feeling  himself  that  it  was  but  a  milestone  on 
the  road,  marking  a  spot  that  he  had  left  leagues 
behind  him. 

But  the  creative  instinct,  which  had  struggled 
fitfully  with  the  hard  practical  conditions  of  his 
professional  life,  now  took  a  sudden  bound  for- 
ward. His  writing  became  the  one  important 
thing  in  the  world  for  Hugh.  He  had  gained, 
he  found,  through  constant  practice,  dry  as  the 
labour  had  been,  a  considerable  fluency  and 
firmness  of  touch  :  now  sentences  shaped  them- 
selves under  his  hand  like  living  things ;  words 
flowed  easily  from  their  abundant  reservoir.  Yet 
the  peril,  which  he  soon  grew  to  perceive,  was 
that  his  outfit  of  emotional  experience,  his 
knowledge  of  human  life  in  its  breadth  and 
complexity,  was  very  narrow  and  hmited.  He 
had  seen  life  only  under  a  single  aspect,  and 
that  an  aspect  which,  poignant  and  intense  as  it 
was,  did  not  easily  lend  itself  to  artistic  treat- 
ment. The  result  was  that  his  outlook  was  a 
narrow  one,  and  his  mind  was  driven  back  upon 
itself.     The  need  to  speak,  to  express,  to  shape 


Egotism  8 1 

thoughts  in  appropriate  words,  so  long  repressed, 
so  instinctive  to  him,  became  almost  fearfully- 
imperative.  He  was  haunted  by  a  hundred  ar- 
dent speculations  in  art,  in  literature,  in  religion, 
in  metaphysics,  all  of  a  vague  rather  than  a  pre- 
cise kind.  His  mind  had  been  always  of  a 
loose,  poetical  type,  turning  to  the  quality 
of  things  rather  than  to  outward  facts  or 
practical  questions.  Temperaments,  individu- 
alities, appealed  to  him  more  than  national 
movements  or  aspirations;  and  then  the  old 
love  of  nature  came  back  like  a  solemn  pas- 
sion. 

This  sudden  growth  of  egotism  and  introspec- 
tion tended  to  alarm  and  disquiet  Hugh's 
friends  ;  they  put  it  down  to  his  severance  from 
practical  activities,  and  began  to  fear  a  morbid 
and  self-regarding  attitude.  Yet  Hugh  knew 
that  it  would  right  itself ;  it  was  but  the  com- 
pletion of  a  process,  begun  in  his  college  days, 
and  checked  by  his  early  entry  into  professional 
life;  it  was  return  of  his  youth,  the  natural  ful- 
filment of  that  period  of  speculative  thought, 
which  a  young  man  must  pass  through  before 
he  can  put  himself  in  line  with  the  world.  And 
in  any  case  it  was  inevitable;  and  Hugh  was 
content  as  before  to  leave  himself  in  the  hand 
of  God,  only  glad  at  least  that  a  process  which 
would  naturally  have  been   finished  under  the 


82  Beside  Still  Waters 

oroshadowing  of  the  mdancholy  of  youth, 
coold  thus  be  worked  out  with  the  temperate 
tranquillity,  the  serenity  of  manhood. 


VIII 

After  all  the  inevitable  bustle,  the  moving 
and  settling  of  furniture,  the  constant  noting  of 
small  needs,  the  conferences  with  tradesmen,  all 
the  details  inseparable  from  establishing  a  new 
home,  had  died  away,  Hugh  found  himself,  as 
has  been  said,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  in 
comparative  solitude.  He  had  a  few  old  friends 
in  Cambridge ;  but  unless  two  men  are  mem- 
bers of  the  same  college,  meetings,  in  a  place  of 
many  small  engagements,  have  to  be  deliber- 
ately arranged.  Hugh  could  always  go  and 
dine  in  the  hall  of  his  college,  and  be  certain 
of  finding  there  a  quiet  good-fellowship  and  a 
pleasant  tolerance.  But  he  had  not  as  yet  mas- 
tered the  current  of  little  incidents  which  fur- 
nish so  much  of  the  conversation  of  small 
societies :  allusions  to  facts  familiar  to  all  beside 
himself  were  perpetually  being  made ;  and  he 
knew  that  nothing  is  so  tiresome  as  a  would-be 
sympathetic  questioner,  who  does  not  under- 
stand the  precise  lie  of  the  ground.  He  had  as 
yet  no  definite  work  ;  a  literary  task  in  which 
83 


V 


84 


Beside  Still  Waters 


v^ 
^''> 


he  was  shortly  to  be  engaged  had  not  as  yet 
begun ;  the  materials  had  not  been  placed  in 
his  hands.  Thus  compelled  by  circumstances  to 
pass  through  a  period  of  enforced  retreat,  Hugh 
resolved  upon  a  certain  course  of  action.  He 
determined  to  put  down  in  writing,  for  his  own 
instruction  and  benefit,  the  precise  position  Jie__ 
--^  neld  in  thought — his  hopes,  his  desires,  his  be- 
liefs. He  set  to  work,  it  must  be  confessed,  in 
a  melancholy  mood,  the  melancholy  that  is  in- 
separable from  the  position  of  a  man  who  has 
lived  a  very  full  and  active  life,  and  from  whom 
the  burden  of  activities  is  suddenly  lifted. 
Though  the  lifting  of  the  weight  was  an  im- 
mense relief,  and  though  he  could  often  sum- 
mon back  cheerfulness  by  reflecting  how  entire 
his  freedom  was,  and  how  troublesomely  he 
would  have  been  occupied  if  he  had  still  held 
his  professional  position,  yet  the  mere  fact  that 
there  was  no  longer  any  necessity  to  brace  his 
energies  and  faculties  to  meet  some  particular 
call  of  duty,  gave  him  spaces  of  a  flaccid  dreari- 
ness, in  which  his  accustomed  literary  work 
palled  on  him  ;  one  could  not  read  or  write  for 
ever  ;  and  so  he  set  himself,  as  I  have  said,  to 
compose  a  memorandum,  a  symbol,  so  to  speak, 
of  his  moral  and  intellectual^  faith. 

He  was  surprised,  as  soon  as  he  began  his 
task,  to  find  how  much  of  what  he  had  believed 


Foundations  of  Faith 

to  be  certaintiesjbrank  and  dwindled.  A  per- 
fect sincerity  with  himself  was  the  only  possible 
condition  under  which  such  a  work  was  worth 
undertaking.  A  sincerity  which  should  reso- 
lutely discard  all  that  was  merely  tradijjjjjiaL 
and  custonaary^  should  emphasise  nothing, 
should  regard  nothing  as  proved,  in  which 
hope^  outran  scientific  certainty. 

He  found  that  his  creed  began  with  a  deep  / 

and  abiding  faith  in  God  ;  he  believed,  that  is, 
in  the  existence  of  an  all-pervading,  all-power- 
ful Will,  lying  behind  and  in  the  scheme  of 
things. 

Side  by  side  with  this  belief,  and  inextricably  ^ 

interwoven  with  it,  was  his  belief  in  Jjispvvn  / 

identity  and  personal ity\     THat   was  perhaps  ^^ 

the   only   thing  of    which   he   was    ultimately 
assured^     But  his  experience  of  the  world  was  ^ 
that  it  was  peopled  by  similar  personalities,  each 
of  whom  seemed  equally  conscious  of  a  sepa- 
rate existence,  who  were  swayed  by  motives  i 
similar  in  kind,  though  differing  in  detail,  from  / 
the    motives  which  swayed  himself ;   beyond 
these  personalities  lay   whole   ranges  of   sen- 
tient beings,  which  sank  at  last,  by  slow  and 
minute  gradations,  into  matter  which  seemed 
to  him  to  be  inanimate  ;  but  even  all  this  was 
permeated  by  certain  forces,  themselves  unseen, 
but  the  symptoms  of  which  were  apparent  in 


86  Beside  Still  Waters 

all  directions,  such  as  heat,  motion,  attraction, 
electricity.  He  believed  it  possible  that  all 
these  might  be  different  manifestations  and 
specimens  of  the  same  central  force ;  but  it 
was  nothing  more  than  a  vague  possibility. 

He  was  next  confronted  with  a  mysterious 
fact.  In  every  day  and  hour  of  his  own  life  he 
was  brought  face  to  face  with  a  double  experi- 
ence. At  moments  he  felt  himself  full  of  life, 
health,  and  joy  ;  at  other  moments  he  felt  him- 
self equally  subject  to  torpor,  malaise,  and  suf- 
fering]/ What  it  was  that  made  these  two 
classes  of  experience  clear  to  him  he  could  not 
tell ;  but  there  was  no  questioning  the  fact  that 
at  times  he  was  the  subject  of  experience  of  a 
pleasant  kind,  which  he  would  have  prolonged 
if  he  could  ;  while  at  times  he  was  equally 
conscious  of  experiences  which  his  only  de- 
sire was  to  terminate  as  speedily  as  possible. 

This  mystery,  which  no  philosopher  had  ever 
explamed,~"seemed  to  him  to  run  equally 
through  the  whole  of  nature.  He  asked  him- 
self whether  he  was  in  the  presence  of  two  war- 
ring forces.  Would  the  Will,  whatever  it  was, 
which  produced  happiness,  have  made  that 
happiness  permanent,  if  it  could  ?  was  it 
thwarted  by  some  other  power,  perhaps  equally 
strong — though  it  seemed  to  Hugh  that  the 
happiness  of  most  sentient   beings   decidedly 


Duality  87 

and  largely  predetninated  over  their  unhappi- 
ness — a  power  which  was  deliberately  inimical 
to  joy  and  peace,  health  and  well  being? 

It  seemed  to  him,  however,  that  the  two  were 
so  inextricably  intermingled,  and  so  closely 
ministered  the  one  to  the  other,  that  there 
was  an  essential  unity  of  the  Will  at  work ; 
and  that  both  joyful  and  painful  experiences  If 
were  the  work  of  the  same  mind.  He 
therefore  rejected  at  the  outset  the  belief 
that  what  was  commonly  called  evil  could  be 
a  principle  foreign  to  the  nature  of  the  Will 
of  God ;  and  he  put  aside  as  childish  the 
Ijelief  that  ...evil  is  created„  by  the  faculty  *  ^ 
oi  human  choice,  setting  itself  against  the  bene- 
volent Will  of  God  ;  for  benevolence  thus 
hampered  would  at  once  become  a  mere 
tame  and  ineffective  desire  for  the  welfare 
of  sentient  things,  and  be  wholly  deprived 
of  all  the  attributes  of  omnipotence.  Besides, 
he  saw  the  same  qualities  that  produced  suffer-  | 
ing  in  humanity,  such  as  the  instincts  of  cruelty, 
lust,  self-preservation,  nianifesting  themselves 
with  equal  force  among  those  sentient  creatures 
which  did  not  seem  to  be  capable  of  exercising 
any  moral  choice. 

But  in  regarding  na|;jLire,  as  revealed  by  the 
researches  of  scientists,  he  saw  that  there  was  a 
slow  development  taking  place,  a  development 


88  Beside  Still  Waters 

of  infinite  patience  and  almost  insupportable 
delay.  Finer  and  finer  became  the  organisa- 
tion of  animal  life ;  and  in  the  development  of 
human  life,  too,  he  saw  a  slow  progress,  a  daily 
deepening  power  of  organising  natural  resources 
to  gratify  increasingly  complicated  needs.  Not 
only  was  an  energy  at  work,  but  a  progressive 
energy,  bringing  into  existence  things  that  were 
not,    and    revealing    secrets   unknown   before. 

He  next  attempted  to  define  his  moral  belief  ; 
and  here,  too,  he  saw  in  the  world  a  progressive 
force  at  work.  He  saw  society  becoming  more 
and  more  refined,  more  desirous  to  amend 
faulty  conditions,  more  anxious  to  alleviate 
pain;  and  this  not  only  with  self-regarding 
motives,  but  with  a  vital  sympathy,  which 
reached  its  height  in  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
many  individuals  that,  even  if  condemned  to 
suffer  themselves,  they  would  yet  spend  thought 
and  energy  in  relieving,  if  possible,  the  ills  of 
others. 

He  saw  in  the  teaching-of  Ch,j:ist  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  purest  and  simplest  attempt 
ever  made  to  formulate  unselfish  affection.  No 
teacher  of  morals  had  ever  reached  the  point  of 
inculcating  upon  men  the  belief  that  it  was  the 
highest  joy  to  spend  the  energies  of  life  in  con- 
tributing to  the  happiness  of  others.  Though 
he  saw  in  the  system  of  Christ,  as  popularised 


Christianity  89 

and  interpreted,  a  whole  host  of  insecure  as-  , 
sumptions,  unverified  assertions,  and  even  de- 
grading traditions,  yet  he  could  not  doubt 
the  Divine  force  of  the  central  message.  If  he 
was  not  in  a  position  to  affirm  with  certitude 
the  truth  of  the  recorded  events  which  attained 
the  origin  of  the  Christian  revelation,  he  could 
yet  affirm  with  confidence  that  in  the  teaching 
of  Christ  a  higher  range  of  emotion  had  been 
reached  than  had  ever  been  approached  before  • 
and  he  saw  that  spirit,  in  countless  regions, 
however  slowly,  leavening  the  thought,  the  in- 
stincts of  the  world.  The  question  then  re- 
solved itself  into  a  practical  one.  How  in  Jijs  owri .. . 
life  was  he  to  make  the  serenity,  the  happiness 
w^hich  he  desired,  predominate  over  the  suffer- 
ing, the  discontent  to  which  he  was  liable  ? 
Could  it.  be  done  by  an  effort  of  mind?  His 
professional  life  had  shown  him  that  activity 
had  not  brought  him  any  peace  of  mind,  prin- 
cipally because  the  system  which  he  was  bound 
to  serve  demanded  such  immense  expense  of 
labour  for  purely  unprofitable  ends.  It  had  not 
been  part  of  the  humble  and  necessary  work  of 
the  world,  which  must  be  done  by  some  one,  if 
human  beings  are  to  live  at  all ;  it  had  only 
been  the  outcome  of  the  needlessly  elaborate 
life  of  a  highly  organised  community.  It  had 
filled    his  life  full  of  a  futile  intellectual  toil. 


,^' 


90  Beside  Still  Waters 

And  then,  the  effect  upon  his  own  character 
had  been  to  hamper  and  stunt  his  natural 
energies.  It  had  given  him  false  ideals  and 
wrong  motives. 

Looking  back  at  his  own  life,  Hugh  saw  that 
anibition,  in  one  form  or  another,  had  poisoned 
his  spirit.  He  saw  that  the  instinct  to  gain  a 
supremacy  at  the  expense  of  others  had  been 
the  one  serious  motive  pressed  upon  him  from 
first  to  last ;  indeed  the  necessity  for  moral 
control  had  been  really,  though  not  nominally, 
lurged  upon  him,  on  the  ground  that  by  yield- 
ing to  bodily  desires  he  would  be  likely  to 
frustrate  his  visions  of  success.  Only  of  late 
had  he  had  any  suspicion  of  the  truth,  that 
gentleness,  peacefulness,  kindness,  sincerity, 
quiet  toil,  activity  of  body  and  mind,  were  the 
■":. "  things  that  really  made  life  sweet  and  joyful. 
,*^'^"  ■  Had  he  learned  it  too  late  to  be  able  to  exor- 
cise the  demons  that  had  so  long  harboured  in 
his  soul?     He  feared  so. 

But  at  last,  after  long  pondering,  he  arrived 
at  his  decision,  which  was  that  if  indeed  this 
vast  and  patient  Will  was  in  the  background  of 
all,  the  only  way  was  to  follow  it,  to  lean  upon 
it ;  above  all  things  not  to  be  distracted  by  the 
conventions  of  society,  which,  though  they,  too, 
in  a  sense,  had  their  origin  in  the  Will  of  God, 
yet  were  things  to  be  left  behind,  to  be  strug- 


The  Will  of  God  91 

gled  out  of.  There  might  indeed  be  some 
natures  to  which  such  things  were  attractive 
and  satisfying,  but  Hugh  had  no  doubt  that 
though  they  might  attract  him,  they  could  not 
satisfy. 

And  yet  over  his  thoughts  there  brooded  the 
shadow  of  the  sad  possibiHties  that  lay  in  wait 
for  him,  and  of  which  he  had  already  felt  the 
touch — pain,  weariness,  a  discontented  mind, 
jealousy,  despair,  and  at  the  end  of  all  death, 
which  closed  the  prospect  whichever  way  he 
looked.  But  if  these  things,  too,  were  of  the 
very  nature  of  God,  His  Will  indeed,  though 
obscure  and  terrible,  the  only  way  was  in  a 
patient  and  loving  submission,  a  knowledge 
that  they  could  not  be  wholly  in  vain  ;  and  so 
he  resolved  that  his  life  should  be  even  so  ; 
that  he  would  embrace  all  opportunities  of 
showing  kindness,  giving  help  to  others ;  that 
he  would  live  a  simple  life  of  labour,  using  his 
faculties  to  the  uttermost,  as  God  should  pro- 
vide; and  that  his  whole  being  should  be  a 
deliberate  prayer  that  he  might  do  the  Will  of 
God  as  affected  himself,  without  seeking  the 
praise  or  recognition  of  men.  He  foresaw  in- 
deed much  solitude,  much  weariness.  God  had 
never  given  him  one  whom  he  could  unre- 
servedly love,  though  He  had  sent  him  abun- 
dance of  pure  and   noble  friendships.     Quiet 


92  Beside  Still  Waters 

*  dependence  upon   God,   simplicity   of  life,   a 

/    readiness  to  serve,  a  strenuous  use  of  the  gifts 

^      given  to   him  ;   that  was  the   faith   in   which 

Hugh,  now  late  in  life,  and  after  what  profitless 

squandering  of  energies,  began  his  pilgrimage. 


^' 


T^ 


IX 


It  seemed  strange  to  Hugh  to  sit  there  as  he 
did,  in  his  quiet  house  beside  the  stream,  with 
an  active  professional  life  behind  him,  and 
wonder  what  the  next  act  would  be.  His  time 
was  now  filled  with  an  editorial  task  which 
would  demand  all  his  energies,  or  rather  a  large 
part  of  them;  but  editorial  work,  however 
interesting  in  itself — and  the  interest  of  his 
particular  work  was  great — left  one  part  of  the 
mind  unsatisfied ;  that  part  of  the  mind  which 
desired  to  create  some  beautiful  thing.  Hugh's 
difficulty  was  this,  that  he  had  no  very  urgent 
message,  to  use  a  dignified  word,  to  deliver  to 
the  world.  Nowadays,  to  appeal  to  the  w^rld, 
it  is  necessary  to  do  things,  it  would  seem,  in 
rather  a  strident  way,  to  blow  a  trumpet,  or 
wave  a  flag,  or  command  an  army,  or  reform 
a  department  of  state,  or  control  a  railroad. 
Hugh  had  neither  the  power  nor  the  will  to 
write  a  virile  book  or  a  powerful  story,  or  to 
take  imagination  captive.  He  did  not  wish 
to  head  a  revolt  against  anything  in  particular. 
The  day  of  the  old,  grim,  sinister  tyrannies,  he 
93 


94  Beside  Still  Waters 

felt,  in  the  Western  corner  of  the  world,  was 
over,  and  the  kind  of  tyranny  that  vexed  his 
spirit  was  a  far  more  secret  and  subtle  distor- 
tion of  liberty.  It  was  the  rule  of  convention- 
ality that  he  desired  to  destroy,  the  appetite 
for  luxury,  and  power,  and  excitement,  and 
strong  sensation.  He  would  have  liked  to  do 
something  to  win  men  back  to  the  joys  that 
were  within  the  reach  of  all,  the  joys  of  peace- 
ful work,  and  simplicity,  and  friendship,  and 
quiet  hopefulness.  These  wefe  what  seemed 
to  Hugh  to  be  the  staple  of  life,  and  to  be 
within  the  reach  of  so  many  people.  And  yet 
he  had  no  mission.  He  could  only  detest  the 
loud  voices  of  the  world  and  its  feverish  excite- 
ments, with  all  his  heart ;  and  on  the  other 
hand  he  loved  with  increasing  contentment  the 
gentler  and  beautiful  background  of  life,  that 
enacted  itself  every  day  in  the  garden  and  field 
and  wood ;  the  quiet  waiting  things,  the  old 
church  seen  over  orchards  and  cottage-roofs, 
the  deep  pool  in  the  reedy  river,  dreaming  its 
own  quiet  dreams,  whatever  passed  in  the 
noisy  world.  He  was  sure  that  those  things 
would  bring  peace  to  many  weary  spirits,  if 
they  could  but  learn  to  love  tKem., 

Artists  and  musicians,  Hugh  felt,  were  the 
happiest  of  all  people  ;  for  they  made  the  beau- 
tiful thing  that  might  stand  by  itself,  without 


Art  95 

the  need  of  comment.  The  graceful  boy  or 
girl  that  they  painted,  undimmed  by  age  and 
evil  experience,  looked  down  at  you  from  the 
canvas  with  a  pure  and  radiant  smile,  and 
became,  as  it  were,  a  spring  of  clear  water, 
where  a  soul  might  bathe  and  be  clean.  Or 
the  picture  of  some  silent  woodland  place, 
some  lilied  pool  on  a  golden  summer  afterndbn 
— how  the  peace  of  it  came  into  the  spirit,  how 
it  seemed  to  assure  the  heart  that  God  loved 
beauty  best,  lavishing  it  with  an  unwearied 
hand,  even  where  there  could  be  none  to  behold 
it  but  Himself!  Then  the  musician, — how  he 
wove  the  airy  stuff  of  sound,  so  that  the  pathos 
of  the  world,  its  heavy  mysteries,  its  sunlit 
joys,  started  into  life,  embracing  the  soul,  and 
bidding  it  not  to  be  faithless  or  blind.  These 
were  the  pure  gifts  of  art,  the  spells  before 
which  the  dull  conventions  of  the  world,  its 
noise  and  dust,  crumbled  into  the  ugly  ashes 
that  they  really  were. 

Beside  those  magical  secrets  the  clumsy  art 
of  the  writer  stood  abashed.  Those  tints,  those 
notes  were  such  definite  things ;  but  in  the 
grosser  and  more  tainted  medium  with  which 
writers  dealt,  where  so  much  depended  upon 
association  and  point  of  view,  there  was  so 
much  less  certainty  of  producing  the  effect 
intended,  that  one  faltered  and  lost  faith.     One 


9^  Beside  Still  Waters 

thing  was  certain,  that  it  was  useless  to  search 
for  a  mission  ;  the  purpose  must  descend  from 
heaven,  as  the  eagle  pounced  on  Ganymede, 
and  carry  the  trembling  and  awed  minister 
high  above  the  heads  of  men.  But  the  only 
thing  that  the  faithful  writer  could  do  was  to 
map  out  some  little  piece  of  quiet  work,  make 
no  vast  design,  seek  for  no  large  sovereignty ; 
and  then  work  patiently  on  with  ever-present 
enjoyment,  learning  his  art,  gaining  skill  and 
mastery  over  his  vast  and  complex  instrument, 
till  he  gained  certainty  of  touch  and  the  power 
of  saying,  with  perfect  lucidity,  with  pure  trans- 
parency of  phrase,  exactly  what  he  meant ;  and 
then,  behind  his  art,  to  live  resolutely  in  his 
simple  creed,  whatever  article  of  it  he  could 
master,  sure  of  this,  that  if  his  inspiration 
came,  he  would  be  able  to  present  it  worthily  ; 
and  if  it  did  not  come — well,  his  would  have 
been  a  grave,  quiet,  gracious  life,  like  the  life 
of  a  song-bird  that  had  never  had  an  audience, 
or  a  stream  which  dropped  in  crystal  cataracts 
from  unvisited  rocks,  upon  which  no  gazer's 
eye  had  ever  fallen.  And  so  there  shaped 
itself  what  must  be  for  the  lover  of  the  beauti- 
ful the  first  article  of  his  faith,  the  thought 
that  the  happiness  of  art  came  in  the  making, 
the  weighing,  the  disposing,  and  not  in  the 
recognition  of  the  triumph  by  others;  and  that 


The  End  of  Art  97 

the  temptation  to  gain  a  hearing,  to  touch 
hearts,  to  sway  emotions  was  a  natural  one 
enough,  but  that  it  must  be  the  first  of  all  to 
be  discarded,  as  one  set  foot  in  the  enchanted 
world,  among  the  dim  valleys  and  rock-ridges, 
the  thickets  and  the  plains,  that  stretched 
beyond  the  sunset  and  on  to  the  sea's  rim, — that 
wider,  more  shadowy,  more  remote  world  of 
awe  and  mystery  which  lay  so  near,  outside 
the  window,  at  the  opening  of  a  door,  at  the 
sound  of  a  voice,  the  glance  of  an  eye,  and  in 
which  one's  busy  fevered  life  was  set,  like  the 
print  of  the  wind's  footstep  in  the  crisping  wave, 
on  the  surface  of  some  vast  unfathomable 
sea.  I 

7  ^  fKf^ 


In  reading  biographies  of  illustrious  person- 
ages, Hugh  was  often  interested  and  surprised 
to  compare  the  pictures  of  undergraduate  life 
drawn  there  with  his  own  experience  of  that 
period.  They  were  generally  related  in  the 
form  of  reminiscences,  seen  far-off,  at  the  end 
of  a  long  perspective  of  years.  It  was  gener- 
ally represented  as  a  period  of  high  enthusiasm, 
intense  energy,  eager  work,  unclouded  happi- 
ness. The  perception  of  great  problems,  noble 
thoughts,  seemed  in  these  reminiscences  to 
have  fallen  on  chivalrous  minds  with  a  deep 
natural  joy.  They  recorded  hours  of  match- 
less talk,  ingenuous  debate,  brilliant  wit,  scin- 
tillating intellect.  Hugh  liked  to  believe  that 
this  was  the  case,  but  hs.aiten  -wond£i:ed^ 
whether  it  was  not  all  heightened  by  retro- 
spect, and  whether  the  radiance  o£  the,  whole 
picture  was  not  merely  the  radiance  of  recol- 
lected youth.  If  the  picture  was  a  true  one, 
then  the  later  years  of  the  men  whose  lives 
were  thus  told,  of  whom  more  than  one  were 


(£ 


Retrospect  99 

known  personally  to  Hugh,  must  have  been 
years  of  sad  physical  and  mental  declirie. 
There  was  one  person  in  particular,  an  eminent 
ecclesiastic,  who  had  been  a  frequent  guest  at 
his  father's  house,  in  whom  Hugh  had  never 
discovered  any  particular  swiftness  of  percep-  ^ 
tion,  of  agility  of  mind,  yet  the  reminiscences  r" 

of  whos^Undergraduate  years  were  given  in  a  ' 

vein  of  high  enthusiasm.  This  worthy  clergy- 
man had  seemed,  if  his  memory  was  to  be 
trusted,  to  have  been  the  shining  centre  of  a 
group  whose  life  threw  the  life  of  young  Ath- 
ens, as  represented  by  Plato,  into  the  shade. 
The  man  in  question  seemed,  in  later  years, 
a  sturdily  built  clergyman,  slow  and  cautious 
of  speech,  brusque  and  even  grim  of  address, 
sensible,  devoted  to  commonplace  activities, 
and  with  a  due  appreciation  of  the  Qomfort§ 
and  conveniences  of  life.  His  conversation 
had  no  suggestivenesgu  or  subtlety.  He  was 
grumpy  in  the  morning  and  good-humoure_d  in  v 
the  eveninj^.  He  seemed  impatient  of  new 
ideas,  and  endowed  with  a  firm  grasp  of  con- 
ventional and  obvious  notions. 

Hugh's  own  recollection  of  his  university  days 
was  very  different,  and  yet  he  had  lived  in  what 
might  be  called  an  intellectual  set.  There  had 
been  plenty  of  easy  friendship,  abundance  of 
lively  gossip,  incessant  and  rather  tedious  fes- 


loo  Beside  Still  Waters 

tivities.  Men  had  groaned  and  grumbled  over 
their  work,  played  games  with  hearty  conviction, 
had  nourished  no  great  illusions  about  them- 
selves and  each  other,  had  had  few  generous  and 
ardent  visions  about  art,  poetry,  or  humanity; 
or,  if  they  had,  they  had  kept  them  to  them- 
selves with  a  very  good  show  of  contented 
indifference.  There  was  indeed  a  little  society 
to  which  Hugh  had  belonged,  where  books,  and 
not  very  recondite  ideas,  of  ethical  or  moral 
import,  were  discussed  freely  and  amiably,  with- 
out affectation,  and  occasionally  with  a  certain 
amount  of  animation.  But  the  arguments  en- 
gendered were  flimsy,  inconsequent,  and  fan- 
tastic enough;  the  dialectic  flashed  to  and  fro, 
never  very  convincing,  and  mostly  intended  to 
aggravate  rather  than  to  persuade.  Even  at 
the  time  it  had  often  appeared  to  Hugh  to  be 
shallow  and  flimsy.  He  had  seldom  heard  a  sub- 
ject debated  with  any  thoroughness  or  justice, 
and  he  had  learned  far  more  from  the  preparation 
of  occasional  papers  framed  to  initiate  a  discus- 
sion, than  from  any  discussion  that  followed. 
The  best  thoughts  that  Hugh  had  apprehended 
in  those  days  had  been  the  thoughts  that  he  had 
won  from  books ;  his  mind  had  opened  rapidly 
then,  in  the  direction  of  a  kind  of  poetical  meta- 
physic,  not  deep  speculation  on  the  ultimate 
nature  of  things,  so  much  as  reflection  on  the 


Mental  Progress  loi 

more  psychological  problems  of  character  and 
personality.  It  seemed  to  Hugh  that  his  own 
mind,  and  the  minds  of  those  with  whom  he  had 
lived,  had  been  a  mass  of  prejudices,,  of  halfr 
formed  and  inconsistent  theories.  None  of 
them  had  had  any  policy  into  which  they  fitted 
the  ideas  that  came  to  them  ;  but  a  new  and 
attractive  idea  had  been  seized  upon,  on  its  own 
merits,  without  any  reference  to  other  theories, 
or  with  any  desire  to  co-ordinate  it  with  other 
ideas,  which  were  indeed  just  thrust  aside  to 
make  room  for  the  new  one. 

Hugh's  idea  of  mental  progress,  in  his  later 
years,  was  the  slow  dwelling  upon  some  thought, 
the  quiet  application  of  it  to  other  thoughts.  It 
seemed  an  inversion  of  the  ordinary  method  of 
progress,  if  the  biographies  that  he  read  were 
true.  Taking  the  case,  for  instance,  of  the  par- 
ticular man  whom  Hugh  had  known,  and  whose 
biography  he  had  studied,  he  seemed  in  youth 
to  have  been  generous,  fearless,  candid,  and 
ardent,  and  life  must  have  been  to  him  a  process  j 
of  hardening  and  encrusting  with  prejudice  ;  he 
seemed  to  have  begun  with  a  bright  faith  in 
ideas,  and  to  have  ended  with  a  dull  belief  in 
organisations.  He  had  begun  by  being  thrilled 
with  the  beauty  of  virtue,  and  he  had  ended  by 
supporting  the  G.F.S.  Hugh's  experience  was 
the  exact  opposite  of  this.     He  had  begun,  he 


I02  Beside  Still  Waters 

thought,  by  being  loaded  and  burdened  with 
prejudices  and  stupid  notions,  acquired  he  knew 
not  how ;  he  had  not  doubted  the  value  of 
authority,  tradition,  usage;  as  life  went  on,  it 
seemed  to  him,  that  he  had  got  rid  of  his  pre- 
judices one  by  one,  and  that  he  had  arrived,  at 
the  age  of  forty,  at  valuing  sincerity,  sympathy, 
sirrvplicity,  and  candour  above  dogma  and  ac- 
cumulated beliefs.  He  had  begun  with  a  firm 
faith  in  systems  and  institutions  ;  he  had  ended 
by  basing  all  his  hopes  on  the  individual.  He 
had  begun  by  looking  for  beauty  and  perfection 
wherever  he  was  told  to  expect  it ;  if  he  had 
not  discerned  it,  he  had  blamed  his  own  dulness 
of  perception.  It  had  been  a  heavy  and  soulless 
business ;  and  the  real  freshness  of  life,  intel- 
lectual curiosity,  mental  independence  seemed 
to  have  come  to  him  in  fullest  measure,  just 
at  jthe  age  when  most  men  seemed  to  have 
parted  with  those  qualities.  As  an  under- 
graduate, he  had  been  more  aware  of  fitfulness 
and  weariness  than  anything  ;  only  gradually 
had  he  become  conscious  of  concentration, 
sustained  zest,  intention.  Then  he  had  tend- 
ed to  condemn  enthusiasm  as  a  species  of 
defective  manners.  Now  he  lived  by  its 
steady  light.  Then  he  had  been  at  the  mercy 
of  a  new  idea,  an  attractive  personality.  He 
shuddered  to  think  how  easily  he  had  made 


Renewal  of  Youth  103 

friendships,  and  how  contemptuously  he  had 
broken  them  the  moment  he  was  disappointed. 
Now  he  weighed  and  tested  more ;  but  at  the  y^ 
same  time  he  also  opened  his  heart  and  his 
thoughts  far  more  deliberately  and  frankly  to 
sympathetic  and  generous  people. 

Hugh  seemed  to  have  found  rather  than  to 
have  lost  his  youth.  His  actual  youth,  indeed, 
seemed  to  him  to  have  been  a  tremulous  thing, 
fulFof  fears  and  sensibilities,  feminine,  unbal- 
anced, frivolous.  Life  had  so  far  been  to  Hugh 
pure  gain.  Looking  back  he  saw  himself  irreso- 
lute, vague,  sentimental,  incapable  of  applica- 
tion, unmethodical,  half-hearted.  He  had  had 
none  of  the  buoyancy,  the  splendid  dreams, 
the  sparkling  ambitions  that  seemed,  according 
to  the  records,  to  have  been  the  stuff  of  great 
men's  youth. 

He  sat  one  day  in  the  ante-chapel  of  his  old 
college,  through  a  morning  service,  listening, 
as  in  a  dream,  to  the  sweet  singing  within  ;  it 
seemed  but  a  day  since  he  had  sat  in  his  stall, 
a  fitful-hearted  boy.  The  service  ended,  and 
the  procession  streamed  out,  the  rich  tints  of 
the  windows  lighting  up  the  faces  and  the  white 
surplices  of  the  men,  old  and  young,  that  issued 
from  the  dark  door  of  the  screen.  Hugh  felt 
within  himself  that  he  would  not  have  the  old 
days  back  again  even  if  he  could  ;  he  was  no- 


I04  Beside  Still  Waters 

thing  but  grateful  for  the  balance,  the  serenity, 
that  life  had  brought  him.  He  was  conscious 
j  of  greater  strength,  undimmed  energy,  increased 
zest ;  faltering  indeed  he  was  still,  not  better, 
not  more  unselfish  ;  but  he  had  a  sense  of  truer 
values,  more  proportion,  more  contentment. 
The  mysteries  of  life  were  as  dark  as  ever,  but 
at  least  he  no  longer  thought  that  he  had 
the  key ;  in  those  days  his  little  rickety  system 
of  life,  that  trembled  in  every  breeze,  had 
seemed  for  him  to  bridge  all  gaps,  to  explain 
all  mysteries.  Now,  indeed,  chaos  stretched  all 
about  him,  full  of  huge  mists,  dark  chasms,  hid- 
den echoes  ;  but  he  perceived  something  of  its 
vastness  and  immensity  ;  he  had  broken  down 
the  poor  frail  fences  of  his  soul,  and  was  in 
contact  with  reality.  He  did  not  doubt  that 
he  seemed  to  the  younger  generation  an  elderly 
and  sombre  personage,  stumbling  down  the 
dark  descent  of  life,  with  youth  and  brightness 
behind  him  ;  but  that  descent  appeared  to  him- 
self to  be  rather  an  upward-rising  road,  over 
dim  mountains,  the  air  glowing  about  him  with 
some  far-off  sunrise.  Poetry,  art,  religion — 
they  meant  a  thousand-fold  more  to  him  than 
they  had  meant  in  the  old  days.  They  had 
been  pretty  melodies,  deft  tricks  of  hand,  choice 
toys  then.  Now  they  were  exultations,  agonies, 
surrenders,  triumphs.    The  prospect  of  life  had 


The  New  Energy  105 

been  to  him  in  those  days  like  misty  ranges, 
full  of  threatening  precipices  and  dumb  valleys 
in  which  no  foot  had  trod.  Now  he  saw  from  the 
hill-brow,  a  broad  and  goodly  land  full  of  wood 
and  pasture,  clustered  hamlets,  glittering,  smoke- 
wrapt  towns,  rivers  widening  to  the  sea ;  the 
horizons  closed  by  the  blue  hills  of  hope,  from 
which  life  and  love,  and  even  death  itself, 
seemed  to  wave  hands  of  welcome  ere  they 
dipped  to  the  unseen.  He  blessed  God  for 
that ;  and  best  of  all  he  had  no  desire,  as  he 
had  had  in  the  old  days,  to  be  understood,  to 
be  felt,  to  claim  a  place,  to  exercise  an  influence. 
He  had  put  all  that  aside ;  his  only  concern 
was  now  to  step  as  swiftly,  as  strongly  as  possi- 
ble, upon  the  path  that  opened  before  him, 
caring  little  whether  it  led  on  to  grassy  moor- 
lands, or  sheltered  valleys  full  of  wood,  or  even 
to  the  towered  wails  of  some  strong  city  of  God. 


XI 


Hugh,  in  his  leisure,  determined  to  try  if  he 
could  set  his  mind  at  rest  on  one  point,  a  ques- 
tion that  had  always  exercised  a  certain  attrac- 
tion over  him.  This  was  to  _  make  hirnself 
acquainted  with  some  technical  phJlQsophy,  or 
at  any  rate  to  try  and  see  what  the  philosophers 
were  doing.  He  had  not,  he  was  aware,  a  mind 
suited  for  the  pursuit  of  metaphysics ;  he  had 
little  logical  faculty  and  little  power  of  deduc- 
tion ;  he  tended  to  view  a  question  at  bright 
and  radiant  points ;  he  could  not  systematise  or 
arrange  it.  He  did  not  expect  to  be  able  to 
penetrate  the  mystery,  or  to  advance  step  by 
step  nearer  to  the  dim  and  ultimate  causes  of 
things ;  but  he  thought  he  would  like  to  look 
into  the^  philosophers'  workshop,  as  a^lTTan" 
might  visit  a  factory.  He  expected  to  see  a 
great  many  processes  going  on  the  nature  of 
which  he  did  not  hope  to  discern,  and  the  object 
of  which  would  be  made  still  more  obscure  by 
the  desperately  intelligent  explanations  of  some 
obliging  workman,  who  would  glibly  use  tech- 
io6 


Platonism  107 

nical  words  to  which  he  would  himself  be  able 
to  attach  no  sort  of  meaning. 

But  after  a  few  excursions  into  modern  philo- 
sophy,  in  which  he  seemed,  as  Tennyson  said, 
to  be  wading  as  in  a  sea  of  glue,  h^  went  back^ 
to  the  earliest  philosophers  and(  readV\.ristotle 
and  Plato.  He  soon  conceived  a  great  horror 
of  Aristotle,  of  his  subtle  and  ingenious  analy-  O 
sis,  which  often  seemed  to  him  to  be  an  attempt 
to  define  the  undefinable,  and  never  to  touch 
the  point  of  the  matter  at  all ;  he  thought  that 
Aristotle  was  often  occupied  in  the  scientific 
treatment  of  essentially  poetical  ideas,  and  in 
the  attempt  to  classify  rather  than  to  explain. 
Yet  there  were  moments,  it  seemed  to  him, 
when  Aristotle,  writing  with  a  kind  of  grim 
contempt  for  the  vagueness  of  Plato,  was  carried 
off  his  feet  by  the  Platonic  enthusiasm  ;  and  so 
Hugh  turned  to  Plato  which  he  had  scrambled 
through  as  an  undergraduate  long  years  before. 
How  incomparably  beautiful  it  was  !  fit  reveal- 
ed to  Hugh  what  he  had  before  only  dimly 
suspected,  that  the  poet,  the  moralist,  the  priest, 
the  philosopher,  and  even  the  man  of  science, 
were  all  in  reality  engaged  in  the  same  task — 
penetrating  the  vast  and  bewildering  riddle  of 
the  world. ^  In  Plato  he  found  the  pliilosophical 
method  suffus^ed  by'a  burning  poetical  imagina- 
tion  ;  and  he  thought  tTiat  Plato  solved  far  rnore 


io8  Beside  Still  Waters 

]  metaphysical  riddles  by  a  species  of  swift  in- 
I  tuition  than  ever  could  be  done  by  the  closest 
j  analysis.  He  realised  that  Plato's  theory  was  of 
i  a  great,  central,  motionless  entity,  which  acted 
\  not  by  expulsive  energy  but  by  a  sort  of  mag- 
\  netic  attraction  ;  and  that  all  the  dreai.Bs,  the 
'.Jiopeji^the  activities  of  human  minds .^were)iot 
:  the  ripples  of  some  central  outward-speeding 
I  force,  but  the  irresistible  inner  motion,  as  to  the 
1  loadstone  or  the  vortex,  which  made  itself  felt 

I  through  the  whole  universe,  material  and  im- 
material alike.      The  intense  desire  to  knov/,  to 
■  solve,  to  improve,  to  gain  a  tranquil  balance  of 
t  thought,  was  nothing  more,   Hugh  perceived, 
'  than  this  inward-drawing  impulse,  calling  rather 
thaii  coercing  men  to  aspire  to  its  own  supreme 

I  serenity ;  all  our  ideas  of  what  was  pure  and 
beautiful  and  true,  then,  were  the  same  vast 
centripetal  force,  moving  silently  inward  ;  all 
our  sorrows,  our  mistakes,  our  sufferings,  were 
but  the  checking  of  that  overpowering  influ- 
ence ;  and  any  rest  was  impossible  till  weTiad 
drawn  nearer  to  the  central  peace.  This 
seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  not  a  theory  but  an  in- 
tensely inspiring  and  practical  thought.  How 
light-hearted,  how  brave  a  secret !  Instead  of 
desiring  that  all  should  be  made  plain  at  once, 
one  could  rejoice  in  the  thought  that  one 
was    certainly    speeding    homewards ;    and  ex- 


Platonism  109 

perience  was  no  longer  a  blind  conflict  of 
forces,  but  a  joyful  nearing  of  the  central 
sum  of  things.  At  all  events,  what  a  blithe- 
ness,  what  a  zest  it  gave  to  the  genius  of 
Plato  himself !  With  what  eager  inquisitive- 
ness,  in  a  sort  of  a  childlike  gaiety,  he  hurried 
hither  and  thither,  catching  at  every  point  some 
bright  indication  of  the  delightful  mystery- 
Plato  seemed  to  differ  from  the  serious  and 
preoccupied  philosophers  in  this,  that  while 
they  were  lost  in  a  grave  and  anxious  scrutiny 
of  phenomena,  he  was  rather  penetrated  by  the  ^ 
cheerfulness,  the  romance  of  the  whole  business. 
rrhe  intense  personal  emotions,  which  to  the 
analytical  philosophers  seemed  mere  distracting 
elements,  experiences  to  be  forgotten,  crushed 
and  left  behind,  were  to  Plato  supreme  mani- 
festations of  the  one  desire.)  One  desired  in 
others  what  one  desired  in  God  ;  the  sense  of 
adn^iration,  the  longing  for  sympathy  the  de- 
sire that  no  close  embrace,  no  passionate  glance 
could  satisfy,  these  were  but  deep  yearnings 
after  the  perfect  sympathy,  the  perfect  under- 
standing of  God.  And  thus  when  Plato 
appeared  most  to  be  trifling  with  a  subject, 
to  Be  turning  it  over  and  over  as  a  man 
may  turn  about  a  crystal  in  his  hands,  watch- 
ing the  lights  blend  and  flash  and  separate 
on    the    polished    facets,  he  was  really   draw- 


no  Beside  Still  Waters 

ing  nearer  to  the  truth,  absorbing  its  delicious 
radiance  and  sweetness.  Those  sunny  morn- 
ings, spent  in  strolling  and  talking,  in  col- 
onnade or  garden,  in  that  imperishable 
Athens,  seemed  to  Hugh  like  the  talk  of 
saints  in  some  celestial  city.  Saints  not  of 
heavy  and  pious  rectitude,  conventional  in  pos- 
ture and  dreary  in  mind,  but  souls  to  whom 
love  and  laughter,  pathos  and  sorrow,  were  alike 
sweet.  ^Instead  of  approaching  life  with  a  sense 
of  its  gravity,  its  heinousness,  its  complexity, 
timid  of  joy  and  emotion  and  delight,  practising 
sadness  and  solemnity,  Plato  and  his  followers 
began  at  the  other  end,  and  with  an  irrepressible 
optimism  Igiglieved  that  joy  was  conquering  and 
not  being  conquered,  that  light  was  in  the  as- 
cendant, rippling  outwards  and  onwards.  And 
then  the  supreme  figure  of  all,  whether  imagi- 
nary or  not  mattered  little,  Socrates  himself, 
with  what  a  joyful^  soberiipss  and  gravity  d'id 
he  move  forward  through  experience,  never 
losing  his  balance,  but  serenely  judging  all 
till  the  moment  came  for  him  to  enter  be. 
hind  the  dark  veil  of  death  ;  and  this  he  did 
with  the  same  imperturbable,  good-humour, 
neither  lingering  nor  hasti.ng,  but  with  a  tran- 
quil confidence  that  life  was  beginning  rather 
than  ending. 

And  then  Hugh  saw  in  a  flash  thatfthe  essence 


The  Pauline  Gospel  m 

of  the  Gospel  itself  was  like  that. )  When  he 
read  the  sacred  record  in  the  light  of  Plato,  it 
seemed  to  him  asTT  it  must  in  some  subtle  way 
be  pervaded  by  the  same  bright  intuitions  as 
those  which  lit  up  the  Greek  mind.  It  seemed 
to  Hugh  a  strange  and  bewildering  thing  that 
(the  pure  message  of  simplicity  and  love,  with 
its  tender  waiting  upon  God,  its  delight  in 
flowers  and  hills,  its  love  of  great  ideas,  its  rich 
poetry,  its  perfect  art,  had  taken  on  the  gloomy 
metaphysical  tinge  that_St^aul,  withall  his_ 
genius,  had  contrived  to  communicate  to  it.  j 
Surely  it  was  intolerable  to  believe  that  all 
those  subtle  notions  of  sacrificial  satisfaction,  ^ 
of  justification,  of  substitution,  had  ever  crossed 
the  Saviour's  mind  at  all.  In  a  sense  He  ful- 
filled the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  for  tJKey  had 
laid  down,  in  grief  and  doubt,  a  harsh  code  of 
morality,  because  they  saw  no  other  way  of 
leavening  the  conscience  of  the  world.  But 
the  Saviour,  at  least  in  the  simple  records,  had 
not  trafficked  in  such  thoughts ;  He  had  but 
shown  the  significance  of  the  primary  emotions, 
had  taught  humanity  that  it  was  free  as  air, 
dear  to  the  heart  of  God,  heir  of  a  goodly  in- 
heritance of  love  and  care.  St.  Paul  was  a_man_ 
of  burning  ardour,  but  had  he^not  made  the 
mistake  of  trying  to  lend  too  intellectual,  too 
erudite,  too  complicated    a   colour  to    it  all? 


1 1 2  Beside  Still  Waters 

The  essence  of  the  Q^spel  seemed  to  be  that  man 
should  not  be  bound  by  the  tradition  of  men  ; 
but  St.  Paul  had  been  so  intent  upon  drawing 
in  those  to  whom  tradition  was  dear,  that  in 
trying  to  harmonise  the  new  with  the  old,  he 
had  made  concessions  and  developed  doctrines 
that  had  detrimentally  affected  Christianity 
ever  since,  and  gone  near  to  cast  it  in  a  different 
mould.  Of  course  there  was  a  certain  con- 
tinuity in  religion,  a  development.  But  St. 
Paul  was  so  deeply  imbued  with  Rabbinical 
methods  and  Jewish  tradition,  th^tln  his  splen- 
did attempt  to  show  that  Christianity  was  the 
fulfilment  of  the  Law,  he  had  deeply  infected 
the  pure  stream  Avit^  Jewish  ideas.  The  essence 
of  Christianity  was  meant  to  be  a  tabula  rasa. 
Christ  bade  men  trust  their  deepest  and  widest 
intuitions,  their  sense  of  dependence  upon  God, 
their  consciousness  of  divine  origin.  In  this 
respect  the  teaching  of  Christ  had  more  in 
common  with  the  teaching  of  Plato,  than  the 
doctrine  of  St.  Paul  with  the  doctrine  of  Christ. 
Christ  was  concerned  with  the  future,  St.  Paul 
with  the  past ;  Christ  was  concerned  with  re- 
ligious instinct,  St.  Paul  with  religious  develop- 
ment. The  strength  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
was  that  it  depended^  rather  on  the  poetical 
and  emotioTial  consciousness  of  religion,  and 
thus  made  its  appeal  to  the  majority  of  the 


The  Gospel  and  Plato        113 

human  race.  Plato,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
too  intellectual,  and  a  perception  of  his  doctrine 
was  hardly  possible  except  to  a  man  of  subtle 
and  penetrating  ability.  Hugh  wonderedQ;^it 
would  be  possible  to  put  the  doctr[pe  of  Pl^ta 
in  such  a  light  that  it  would  appeal  to  simplg 
people  ;  he  thought  that  it  would  be  possible; 
and  here  he  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  Plato. 
like  Christ,  employed  tjie  device  of  the  parable 
largely  as  a  means  of  interpreting  religious 
ideas.  The  teaching  of  the  Gospel  and  the 
teaching  of  Plato  were  alike  deeply  idealistic. 
They  both  depended  upon  the  simple  idea 
that  men  could  conceive  of  themselves  as  • 
better  than  they  actually  were,  and  upon  the 
fact  that  such  a  conception  is  the  strongest 
motive  Jforce  in  the  world  in  the  direction  of 
self-improvement.  The  mystery  of  conversion 
is  nothing  more  than  the  conscious  apprehen- 
sion of  the  fact  that  one's  life  is  meant  to^e 
noble  and  beautiful,  and  that  one  has  the 
power  to  make  it  nobler  and  more  beautiful 
than  it  is. 

It  seemed  to  Hugh,  reflecting  on  the  de- 
velopment of  Christianity,  that  perhaps  it  was 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Pauline  influence 
had  been  to  a  great  extent  a  misfortunes,  it  was 
true  that  in  a  sense  lie  had  resisted  the  Jewish 
tyranny,  and  moreover  that  his  writings  were 

8 


114  Beside  Still  Waters 

(full  of  splendid  aphorisms,  inspiring  thoughts, 
generous  ideals.  But  he  had  formalised  Christ- ' 
ianity_LQr_ail  J;hat ;  he  had  linked  it  closely  to 
the  Judaic  system ;  he  was  ultimately  respon- 
sible for  Puritanism  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  was  his 
influence  more  than  any  other  that  had  given 
^  the  Jewish  Scriptures  their  weight  in  the  Christ- 
ian scheme.  It  seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  a  ter- 
rible calamity  that  he  had  reserved,  so  to  speak, 
a  place  in  the  chariot  of  Christ  for  the  Jewish 
dispensation  ;  it  was  the  firm  belief  in  the  vital 
inspiration  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  that  had 
produced  that  harsh  and  grim  type  of  Christ- 
ianity so  dear  to  the  Puritan  heart.  With  the 
exception  of  certain  of  the  Psalms,  certain  por- 
tions <^f  Job.and  of  the  Proph^tS^,  there  seemed 
to  Hugh  to  be  little  in  the-OIa  Testament  that 
did  not  merely  hamper  and  encumber  the  re- 
ligion of  Christ.  What  endless  and  inextricable 
difficulties  arose  from  trying  to  harmonise  the 
conception  of  the  Father  as  preached  by 
Christ,  with  the  conception  of  the  vindictive, 
wrathful,  national,  local  Deity  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. tJ.aw.,liiUle-. countenance  did  Christ 
ever  give  to  that  idea !  He  did  not  even  think 
of  the  Temple  as  a  house  of  sacrifice,  but  as  a 
house  of  prayer  !  How  seldom  He  alluded  to  the 
national  history!  How  human  and  temporary 
a  character  He  gave  to  the  Law  of  Moses  !   How 


The  Harmony  115 

constantly  He  appealed  to  personal  rather  than 
to  national  aspirations !  How  He  seemed  to 
insist  upon  the  fact  that^very  man  must  make 
his  religion  out  of  the  simplest  elements  of 
moral  consciousness  !/How  often  He  appealed 
to  the  poetry  of  symbols  rather  than  to  the 
effectiveness  of  ceremony !  How  little  claim 
He  laid,  at  least  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  to 
any  divinity,  and  then  rather  injyirtue^  of  His 
perfect  humanity!  He  called  Himself  the  Son 
of  Man  ;  in  the  only  recorded  prayer  He  gave 
to  His  disciples,  there  was  no  hint  that  prayer 
should  be  directed  to  Himself ;  it  was  all  centred 
upon  the  Father. 

Here  again  the  Aristotelian  method,  the  de- 
light in  analysis,  the  natural  human  desire  to 
make  truth  precise  and  complete,  had  intruded 
itself.  What  was  the  Athanasian  creed  but  an 
Aristotelian  formula,  making  a  hard  dogma  out 
of  a  dim  mystery  ?  The  outcome  of  it  all  for 
Hugh  was  the  resolution  that  for  himself,  at  all 
events,  his  business  was  to  disregard  tempta- 
tion to  formularise  his  position.  With  one's 
limited  vision,  one's  finite  inability  to  touch  a 
thought  at  more  than  one  point  at  a  time,  one 
must  give  up  all  hope  of  attaining  to  a  per- 
fected philosophical  system.  The  end  was  dark,  / 
the  solution  incomprehensible.  He  must  rather 
live  as  far  as  possible  in  a  high  and  lofty  emo- 


ii6  Beside  Still  Waters 

tion,  beholding  the  truth  by  hints  and  glimpses, 
pursuing  as  far  as  possible  all  uplifting  intuitions, 
all  free  and  generous  desires.  It  was  useless 
v/  to  walk  in  a  prescribed  path,  to  frame  one's  life 
on  the  model  of  another's  ideal.  He  must  be 
open-minded,  ready  to  revise  his  principles  in 
the  light  of  experience.  He  must  hold  fast  to 
what  brought  him  joy  and  peace.  How  restful 
after  all  it  was  to  know  that  one  had  one's  own 
problem,  one's  own  conditions  !  All  that  was 
negsssary  was  to  put  one's  self  firmly  and  con- 
stantly in  harmony  with  the  great  purpose  that 
had  set  one  exactly  where  one  was,  and  given 
one  a  temperament,  a  character;  good  and  evil 
desires,  hopes,  longings,  temptations,  aspira- 
tions. One  could  not  escape  from  them,  thank 
God.  If  one  only  desired  God's  will,  one's  sins 
and  sufferings  as  well  as  one's  hopes  and  joys 
all  worked  together  to  a  far-off  end.  One  must 
go  straight  forward,  in  courage  and  patience 
and  love. 


W' 


XII 

Hugh  made  friends  at  Cambridge  with  a 
young  Roman  Catholic  priest,  who  was  working 
there. 

His  new  friend  was  a  very  simple-minded 
man  ;  he  seemed  to  Hugh  the  only  man  of 
great  gifts  he  had  ever  known,  who  was  abso- 
lutely untouched  by  any  shadow  of  worldliness. 
Hugh  knewof  men  who  resisted  the  temptations 
of  the  world  very  successfully,  to  whom  indeed 
they  were  elementary  temptations,  long  since 
triumphed  over;  but  this  man  was  the  only 
man  he  had  ever  known  who  was  gifted  with 
qualities  that  commanded  the  respect  and  ad- 
miration of  the  world,  yet  to  whom  the  tempta- 
tions of  ambition  and  success  seemed  never  to 
have  appeared  even  upon  the  distant  horizon. 
He  was  an  interesting  talker,  a  fine  preacher, 
and  a  very  accomplished  writer  ;  but  his  interest 
was  entirely  centred  upon  his  work,  and  not  up^n 
the  rewards  of  it.  He  was  very^  poor  ;  but  he 
had  no  regar3~  for  anytTiTng — luxury,  power, 
position — that  the  world  could  give  him.  He 
117 


ii8  Beside  Still  Waters 

had  no  wish  to  obtain  influence ;  he  only  cared 
to  make  the  work  on  which  he  was  engaged  as 
perfect  as  he  could.  The  man  was  really  an 
artist  pure  and  simple ;  he  seemed  to  have  little 
taste  for  pastoral  work. 

One  day  they  sat  together,  on  a  hot  breath- 
less afternoon,  in  a  college  garden,  on  a  seat 
beneath  some  great  shady  chestnut-trees,  and 
looked  out  lazily  upon  the  heavy-seeded  grass 
of  the  meadow  and  the  bright  flower  borders. 
The  priest  said  to  Hugh  suddenly,  "  I  have 
often  wondered  what  your  religion  really  is. 
Do  you  mind  my  speaHng  of  it  ?  You  seem  to 
me  exactly  the  sort  of  man  who  needs  a  strong 
and  definite  faith  to  make  him  happy." 

Hugh  smiled  and  said,  "Well,  I  am  try- 
ing, not  very  successfully  I  fear,  to  find  out 
what  I  really  do  believe.  I  am  trying  to 
construct  my  faith  from  the  bottom ;  and  I 
am  anxious  not  to  put  into  the  foundations 
any  faulty  stones,  anything  that  I  have  not 
really  tested." 

"  That  is  a  very  good  thing  to  do,"  said  the 
priest.     "  But  how  are  you  setting  to  work  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Hugh,  "  I  have  never  had  time 
before  to  think  my  religion  out ;  I  seem  to  have 
accepted  all  kinds  of  loose  ideas  and  shaky  tra- 
ditions. I  want  to  arrive  at  some  certainties ; 
I    try   to   apply   a  severe  intellectual   test   to 


Sacrifice  119 

everything  :  and  the  result  is  that  I  seem 
obliged  to  discard  one  thing  after  another  that 
I  once  believed." 

"  Perhaps,"  said  the  priest  after  a  silence, 
"  you  are  doing  this  too  drastically  ?  Religion, 
it  seems  to  me,  has  to  be  apprehended  in  a  dif- 
ferent region,  the  mystical  region,  the  region 
of  intuition  rather  than  logic." 

"Yes,"  said  Hugh,  "and  intuitions  are  what 
one  practically  lives  by ;  but  I  think  that  they 
ought  to  be  able  to  stand  an  intellectual  test 
too — for,  after  all,  it  is  only  intellectually  that 
one  can  approach  them." 

The  priest  shook  his  head  at  this,  with  a  half- 
smile.  And  Hugh  added,  "I  wish  you  would 
give  me  a  short  sketch,  in  a  few  words  if  you  can, 
of  how  you  reached  your  present  position." 

"That  is  not  very  easy,"  said  the  priest; 
"  but  I  will  try."  He  sat  for  a  moment  silent, 
and  then  he  said,  "  When  one  looks  back  into 
antiquity,  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  one  sees  / 
a  general  searching  after  God  in  the  world  ; 
the  one  idea  that  seems  to  run  through  all 
religions  is  the  idea  of  sacri^ce^— a  coarse  and 
brutal  idea  originally,  perhaps ;  but  the  essence 
of  it  is  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sinfulness, 
and  such  a  thing  as  atonement ;  and  that  only 
through  death  can  life  be  reached.  The  Jews 
came^  nearest  to   the  idea  of  a  personal  God: 


I20  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  the  sacrificial  system  is  seen  in  its  fullest 
perfection  with  them.  Then,  in  the  wise  coun- 
sels of  God,  it  came  about  that  our  Saviour 
was  born  a  Jew.  You  will  say  that  I  beg  the 
question  here ;  but  approaching  the  subject 
intellectually,  one  satisfies  one's  self  that  the 
purest  and  completest  religion  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen  was  initiated  by  Him  ;  it  is  im- 
possible, in  the  light  of  that  religion,  not  to  feel 
that  one  must  give  the  greatest  weight  to  the 
credentials  which  such  a  teacher  put  forward  ; 
and  we  find  that  the  claim  that  He  made  was 
that  He  was  Himself  Very  God.  The  moment 
that  one  realises  that,  one  also  realises  that 
there  is  no  prima  facie  impossibility  that  God 
should  so  reveal  Himself — for  indeed  it  seems 
an  idea  which  no  human  mind  would  dare  to 
originate,  except  in  a  kind  of  insane  delusion ; 
and  the  teaching  of  Christ,  His  utter  modesty 
and  meekness,  His  perfect  sanity  and  clear- 
sightedness, make  it  evident  to  me  that  we  may 
put  out  of  court  the  possibility  that  He  was 
under  the  influence  of  a  delusion.  He,  it  seems 
to  me,  took  all  the  old  vague  ideas  of  sacrifice 
and  consummated  them  ;  He  showed  that  the 
true  spirit  was  there,  hidden  under  the  ancient 
sacrifices ;  that  one  must  offer  one's  best  freely 
to  God  ;  and  in  this  spirit  He  gave  Himself  to 
suffering  and  death.     He  founded  a  society  with 


The  Church  121 

a  definite  constitution ;  He  provided  it  with 
certain  simple  rules,  and  said  that,  when  He 
was  gone  it  would  be  inspired  and  developed 
by  the  workings  of  His  Spirit.  He  left  this 
society  as  a  witness  in  the  world  ;  it  has  de- 
veloped in  many  ways,  holding  its  own,  gain- 
ing strength,  winning  adherents  in  a  marvellous 
manner.  And  I  look  upon  the  Church  as  the) 
witness  to  God  in  the  world ;  I  accept  its  de- 
velopments as  the  developments  of  the  Spirit. 
I  see  many  things  in  it  which  I  cannot  compre-' 
hend;  but  then  the  whole  world  is  full  of  myste- 
ries— and  the  mysteries  of  the  Church  I  accept  in 
a  tranquil  faith.  I  have  put  it,  I  fear,  very  clum- 
sily and  awkwardly ;  but  that  is  the  outline  of 
my  belief — and  it  seems  to  me  to  interpret  the 
world  and  its  secrets,  not  perfectly  indeed,  but 
more  perfectly  than  any  other  theory." 

"  I  see  !  "  said  Hugh,  "  but  I  will  tell  you  at 
once  my  initial  difficulty.  I  grant  at  the  out- 
set that  the  teaching  of  Christ  is  thejjurest  and 
best  religious  teachmg  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen  ;  but  I  look  upon  Him,  not  as  the  founder 
of  a  system,  but  as  the  most  entire  individual; 
ist  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  It  seems  to 
me  that  (all)  His  teaching  was  directed  to  the 
end  that  we  should  believe  in  God  as  a  loving 
Father,  and  regard  all  men  as  brothers ;  the 
principle  which  was  to  direct  His  followers  was 


122  Beside  Still  Waters 

to  be  the  principle  of  gerfectlove.  and  I  think 
that  His  idea  was  that,  if  men  could  accept 
that,  everything  else  mattered  little.  They 
r^just  live  their  lives  with  that  intuiiinn  to  guide 
iiusm  ;  the  Church  seems  to  me  but  the  human 
spoiling  and  complicating  of  that  great  simple 
idea.  I  look  round  and  see  other  religious 
systems  of  the  world — Mohammedanism,  Bud- 
dhism, and  the  rest.  In  each  I  see  a  man  of 
profound  religious  ideals,  whose  system  has 
been  adopted,  and  then  formalised  and  vitiated 
;V'  b^  his  followers.  I  do  not  see  that  there' is 
anything  to  make  me  believe  that  the  same 
process  has  not  taken  place  in  Christianity. 
The  elaborate  system  of  dogma  and  doctrine 
seems  to  me  a  perfectly  natural  human  process 
of  trying  to  turn  ideas,  essentially  poetical,  into 
definite  and  scientific  truths,  and  half  its  errors  to 
arise  from  feeling  the  necessity  of  reconciling 
and  harmonising  ideas,  which  I  have  described 
as  poetical,  which  were  never  meant  to  be  re- 
conciled or  harmonised.  And  then  there  is  the 
added  diflficulty  that,  owing  to  the  system  of 
the  Church,  the  ideas  of  the  earliest  Christian 
teachers,  like  St.  Paul,  have  been  accepted  as 
infallible  too  ;  and  hence  arises  the  dilemma  of 
having  to  bring  into  line  a  whole  series  of  state- 
ments, made,  as  in  St.  Paul's  case,  by  a  man  of 
intense  emotion,  which  are  neither  consistent 


Christianity  123 

with  each  other,  nor,  in  all  cases,  with  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  My  idea  of  Christianity 
is  to  get  as  close  to  Christ's  own  teaching  as 
possTBIe^  1  do  not  concern"  myselF'wTtli  the 
historical  accuracy^  of  the  Gos£el  narratives, 
or  even  with  the  incidents  there  recorded. 
Those  records  are  the  work  of  men  of  very 
imperfect__education,  and  feeble  intellectual 
grasp,  in  the  grip  of  the  prejudices  and  be- 
liefs of  their  age.  But  their  very  imperfection 
makes  me  feel  more  strongly  the  august  per- 
sonality of  Christ,  because  the  principles, 
which  they  represent  Him  as  maintaining, 
seem  to  me  to  be  entirely  beyond  anything 
that  they  could  themselves  have  originated. 
It  seems  to  me,  if  I  discern  Christ  rightly — 
speaking  of  Him  now  purely  as  a  man — that 
if  He  could  return  to  the  earth,  and  be  con- 
fronted with  the  system  of  any  of  the  Churches 
that  bear  His  name,  He  would  declare  it  to 
be  all  a  horrible  mistake.  It  seems  to  me  that 
what  He  aimed  at_was^  strictly  jndividualistic     A' 

system,  an    attitude    of    sincerity,   simplicity,      

ancT  loving-kindness,  free  from  all  formalism 
(which  He  seems  to  have  detested  above  every- 
thing), and  free,  too,  from  all  elaborate  and 
metaphysical  dogma.  Instead  of  this.  He  would 
find  that  men  had  seized  upon  the  letter,  not 
the  spirit,  of  His  teaching,  and  had  devised  a 


124  Beside  Still  Waters 

huge  mundane  organisation,  full  of  pomp  and 
policy,  elaborate,  severe,  hard,  unloving.  Now 
if  I  apply  my  intellectual  tests  to  the  central 
truths  of  Christianity,  such  as  the  law  of  Love, 
the  power  of  self-sacrifice,  the  brotherhood  of 
men,  they  stand  the  test ;  they  seem  to  contain 
a  true  apprehension  of  the  needs  of  the  world, 
of  the  methods  by  which  the  happiness  of  hu- 
manity may  be  attained.  But  when  I  apply 
the  intellectual  test  to  the  superstructure  of  any 
Church,  there  are  innumerable  doctrines  which 
appear  to  me  to  be  contrary  to  reason.  It  is 
difficult  indeed,  in  this  world  of  mystery,  to 
affirm  that  any  mystical  claim  is  not  true,  but 
such  claims  ought  not  to  appear  to  be  repug- 
nant to  reason,  but  to  confirm  the  processes 
of  reason,  in  a  region  to  which  reason  cannot 
scientifically  and  logically  attain.  Such  doc- 
trijjes,  for  instance,  as  prayers  to  saints  for 
their  intercession,  or  the  efficacy  of  masses  for 
the  dead,  seem  to  me  to  have  a  certain  poetical 
beauty  about  them,  but  to  be  contrary  both  to 
reason  and  experience.  I  do  not  jee  the  sh'ght- 
est  hint  of  them  in  the  teaching  of  Christ,  or 
anything  which  can  be  taken  as  giving  them 
any  support  whatever.  They  seem  to  me 
purely  human  fancies,  hardened  into  a  pain- 
fuTmechanical  form,  which  forfeit  all  claim 
to   be  inspired    by   the  Spirit  of  Christ.     But 


Christianity  125 

I  must  apologise  for  giving  you  such  an 
harangue — still,  you  brought  it  on   yourself." 

The  priest  smiled  quietly.  "  I  quite  see  your 
point,"  he  said,  "  and  we  are  at  one  in  your  main 
position  ;  the  difficulty  of  the  Church  is  that  it 
has  to  organise  its  system  for  people  of  all  kinds 
oF~temperament,  and  at  all  stages  of  develop- 
ment. But  the  spirit  is  there — and  if  one  lets  go 
of  the  letter,  the  grasp  of  many  human  beings 
is  so  weak  that  they  tend  to  lose  the  spirit.  The 
Church  no  doubt  appears  to  many  to  be  over- 
organised,  over-definite,  but  that  is  a  practical 
difficulty  which  every  system  which  has  to  deal 
with  large  masses  of  people  is  confronted  with. 
It  is  the  same  with  education  ;  boys  have  to  do 
many  definite  and  precise  things  which  seem  at 
the  time  to  have  no  educational  value;  but  at 
the  end  of  their  time  they  see  the  need  of  these 
processes." 

Hugh  laughed.  "  I  wish  they  did  !  "  he  said  ; 
"my  own  belief  is  that,  in  education  ajj  well  as 
in  relig^i^n^  we  want  moreJ,ndi^idualism,  more 
elasticity.  I  think  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
great  ideas,  rigidly  interpreted  and  mechanically 
enforced,  have  any  value  at  all  for  undeveloped 
minds ;  the  whole  secret  lies  in  their  being  liber- 
ally and  freely  appreTTended." 

"  What  really  divides  us,"  said  the  priest — 
"  and  I  do  not  think  we  are  very  far  apart — is 


126  Beside  Still  Waters 

my  belief  that  God  has  not  left  the  world  with- 
out  a  definite  witness  to  Himself — which  I  be- 
lieve the  Church  to  be." 

**  Yes,"  said  Hugh,  "  I  believe  that  the  Church 
is  a  witness  to  God  :  any_sy§,te;m  which  teaches 
pure  morality  is  that ;  but  I  could  not  limit  His 
witness  to_  a  single  system ;  Nature,  beauty, 
music,  poetry,  art — to  say  nothing  of  sweet  and 
kindly  persons — they  are  all  the  witnesses  of 
His  spirit ;  and  the  Church  is,  in  my  belief, 
simply  hampered  and  restricted  from  doing 
what  she  might,  by  the  woful  rigidity,  the 
mechanical  and  hard  precision,  which  she  has 
imported  into  the  spiritual  region.  The  mo- 
ment that  the  liberty  of  the  spirit  is  restricted, 
and  grace  is  made  to  flow  in  definite  traditional 
channels,  that  moment  the  stream  loses  its  force 
and  brightness." 

"  I  should  rather  believe,"  said  the  priest, 
"  that,  with  all  the  obvious  disadvantages  of 
organisation,  left  to  itself,  the  stream  welters 
into  a  shapeless  marsh,  instead  of  making  glad 
the  City  of  God  !  And  may  I  say  that  you,  and 
those  like  you,  with  ardent  spiritual  instincts, 
make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  we  exclude 
you ;  indeed  it  is  not  so.  You  would  find  the 
yoke  as  easy  and  the  burden  as  light  as  ever. 
In  submission  you  would  gain  and  not  lose  the 
liberty  of  which  you  are  in  search." 


Certainty  127 

The  priest  soon  after  this  took  his  leave. 
Hugh  sat  long  pondering,  as  the  evening  faded 
into  dusk.  Was  there  no  certainty,  then,  at- 
tainable ?  And  the  answer  of  his  own  spirit  was 
that  no  ready-made  certainty  was  of  avail ;  that 
a  man  must  begin  from  the  beginning,  and  con- 
struct his  own  faith  from  the  foundation  ;  that 
reason  must  play  its  part,  lead  the  soul  as  far 
as  it  could,  and  set  it  in  the  right  way  ;  but  that 
the  spirit  must  not  halt  there,  but  pass  courage- 
ously and  serenely  into  the  tractless  waste, 
content,  if  need  be,  to  make  mistakes,  to  retrace 
its  path,  only  sincerely  and  gently  advancing, 
waiting  for  any  hint  that  might  fall  from  the 
Divine  Spirit,  interpreting  rather  than  selecting, 
divesting  itself  of  preferences  and  prejudices 
one  by  one,  and  conscious  that  One  waited, 
smiling  and  encouraging,  but  a  little  ahead 
upon  the  road,  and  that  any  turn  in  the  path 
might  reveal  his  bright  coming  to  the  faithful 


XIII 

The  charm  of  the  Cambridge  life  was  to 
Hugh  the  alternation  of  society  and  solitude. 
He  was  soon_fortunate  enough  to  pbtain  a  post 
at  his  old  college,  and  to  be  allotted  a  set  of 
rooms  there.  He  was  sociably  enough  inclined, 
and  the  stir  and  movement  of  the  minute  soci- 
ety was  interesting  and  enlivening.  He  had  a 
little  definite  work  to  do,  and  he  tried  to  culti- 
vate relations  with  every  one  in  the  college. 
It  was  pleasant  that  he  had  no  connection  with 
disciplinary  matters ;  and  thus  he  was  able  to 
enter  into  a  friendly  intercourse  with  the  under- 
graduates, not  checked  or  hampered  by  any 
necessity  to  find  fault  or  to  offer  advice.  He 
occupied  his  rooms  during  term-time,  and  lived 
theJife  of  the  cpUege  with  quiet  enjoyment. 
But  he  retained  his  little  house  as  well,  and 
when  the  vacation  began,  he  retired  there,  and 
spent  his  days  much  in  solitude.  He  preferred 
this  indeed  to  the  life  of  the  college,  but  he 
was  well  aware  that  it  owed  half  its  pleasure  to 
its  being  an  interlude  in  the  busier  life.  But 
128 


Waiting  for  Light  129 

it  was  thus  that  what  he  felt  were  his  best 
thoughts  came  to  him  ;  thoughts,  that  is  to  say, 
that  pierced  below  the  surface,  and  had  a  qual- 
ity of  reality  which  his  mind,  when  he  was 
employed  and  full  of  schemes,  often  seemed  to 
himself  to  lack.  But,  like  all  speculative-  peo^. 
plewhojpendjmmchjiiji^e^ 

he  seemed  to  himself  very  soon  to  cross  the 
debatable  ground  in  which  people  of  definite 
religious  views  appeared  to  him  to  linger  gladly. 
Here  he  left^ehind  all  the,  pgxSQns.  .whp.jjifir 
pejided  upon  systems.  Here  remained  Roman 
Catholics,  who  depended  chiefly  upon  the 
authority  and  tradition  of  the  Church,  and  Pro- 
testants depending  no  less  blindly  and  compla- 
cently upon  the  authority  of  the  Bible.  The 
real  and  crucial  difficulty  lay  further  on ;  and  it 
was  simply  this  :  he  saw  a  world  full  of  joy,  and 
full  too  of  suffering;  sometimes  one  of  his  fel- 
low-pilgrims would  be  stricken  down  with  some 
incurable  nialady,  and  through  slow  gradations 
of  pain,  sink  wretchedly  to  death  ;  was  this  suf- 
fering remedial,  educative,  benevolent?  He 
hoped  it  was,  he  believed  that  it  was,  in  the 
sense,  at  least,  that  he  could  not  bear  to  feel 
that  it  might  not  be  ;  but  however  ardently  and 
eagerly  he  might  try  to  believe  it,  there  was 
always  the  dark  alternative  that  pain  might  not 
be  either  remedial  or  educative ;  there  was  the 


/. 


(^. 


Beside  Still  Waters 


terrible  possibility  that  identity  and  personal 
consciousness  were  absolutely  extinguished  by 
death ,  for  there  was  no  sort  of  evidence  to 
fKF  contrary  ;  and,  if  this  was  the  case,  what 
remained  of  all  human  belief,  philosophies, 
andcreeds  ?  They  might  simply  be  beautiful 
dreams,  adorable  mistakes,  exquisite  fallacies : 
but  they  could  supply  no  inspiration  for  life, 
unless  there  was  an  element  of  absolute  cer- 
tainty about  them,  which  was  just  the  element 
that  they  lacked  ;  and,  in  any  case,  the  sa.d  fact 
that  such  certainties  as  men  professed  differed 
from  and  even  contradicted  each  other,  intro- 
duced a  new  bewilderment  upon  the  scene.  A 
Romanist  maintained  the  absolute  divinity  of 
the  Church;  a  Protestant  maintained  the  abso- 
lute reliability  of  the  Bible ;  both  of  these 
could  not  be  true,  because  in  many  points  they 
coiltrav.e.ned_each  other ;  the  authority  of  the 
Church  contradicted  the  authority  of  the  Bible, 
while  neither  was  perfectly  consistent  even  with 
itself.  They  could  not  both^be^ true,  and  Hugh 
was  forced  to  believe  that  the  point  in  which 
they  were  both  in  error  was  in  their  claim  to 
.  aji^y  absolute  certainty  at  all.  The  conclusion 
'"seemed  to  be  that  one  must  take  refuge  in  a 
perfect  sincerity,  not  formulate  one's  hopes  as 
beliefs,  but  wait  for  light,  and  keep  the  eyes  of 
the  mind  open  to  all  indications  of  any  kind — 


Waiting  for  Light  131 

that  one  must,  in  the  words  of  the  old  wise 
proverb,  be  ready  to  begin  one's  life  afresh  j 
many  times,  in  the  light  of  any  new  knowledge, 
any  hint  of  truth.  And  thus  one  kind  of  hap- 
piness became  impossible  for  Hugh,  the  happi- 
ness that  comes  of  absolutg  certain^,  when 
one  may  take  a  thing  for  granted,  and  not 
argue_any  more  about  it ;  that  was  the  sort  of 
happiness  which  mauy  of  his  friends  seemed  to 
him  to  attain  ;  andCjf^iife  did  indeed  end  with^ 
death,  it  was  probably  the  best  practical  sys- 
tem to  adopt ;  but  Hugh  could  not  adopt  it ; 
and  therefore  the  only  happiness  he  could 
expect  was  a  candid  and  patient  waiting  upon 
truth,  a  welcoming  of  any  new  experience  with 
a  balanced  and  eager  mind.  To  some  a  human 
love,  a  human  passion,  seemed  the  one  satisfy- 
ing thing,  but  this  was  denied  to  Hugh  and 
the  only  thing  in  his  life  which  was  of  the 
nature  of  a  passion  was  the  sight  of  the  beauti- 
ful world  about  him,  which  appealed  to  him 
day  by  day  with  a  hundred  delicate  surprises, 
unnumbered  novelties  of  rapture.  He  realised 
that  the  one  thing  that  he  dreaded  ^as  a  cold 
tranquillity,  unjcheered  by  hope,  unresponsive 
to  beauty. 

He  rode  one  day,  in  the  height  of  summer, 
for  miles  across  the  fenland.  To  left  and  right 
lay  the  huge  plain  with  its  wide  fields,  its  soli- 


132  Beside  Still  Waters 

tary  trees;  to  his  left,  between  grassy  flood- 
banks,  ran  the  straight  reedy  river,  full  to-day 
of  the  little  yellow  water-lily,  golden  stars  ris- 
ing from  the  cool  floating  leaves  ;  far  ahead  ran 
a  low  wooded  ridge,  with  house-roofs  clustering 
round  a  fantastic  church  tower,  with  a  crown 
of  pinnacles.  Cattle  grazed  peacefully,  and 
the  whole  scene  was  brimful  of  sweet  passion- 
less life,  ineffable  content.  If  he  could  only 
have  shared  it!  Yet  the  sight  of  it  all  filled 
him  with  a  sweet  hopefulness ;  he  travelled  on, 
a  lonely  pilgrim,  eager  and  wistful,  desiring 
knowledge  and  love  and  serenity.  He  felt  that 
they  were  waiting,  certainly  waiting ;  that  they 
were  tenderly  and  wisely  withheld.  That  was 
the  nearest  that  he  could  come  to  his  heart's 
desire.  /  *-/ 


j^ 


XIV 


/ 


It  was  always  a  great  pleasure  to  Hugh  to  o:-  fWt^  roj 
plore  an  unfamiliar  countryside,  and  the  same 
pleasure  was  derivable  to  a  certain  extent  from 
railway  travelling,  though  the  vignettes  that  one 
saw  from  the  windows  of  a  swiftly-rolling  train 
were  so  transitory  and  so  numerous,  that  one 
had  soon  the  same  sense  of  fatigue  that  comes 
from  turning  over  a  book  of  photographs,  or 
from  visiting  a  picture-gallery.  If  one  explored 
the  country  in  a  leisurely  manner  it  was  less  fa- 
tiguing, because  one  could  taste  the  savour  of  a 
sight  at  one's  ease.  Hugh  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion, as  life  advanced,  that  he  preferred  a  land- 
scape on  which  humanity  had  set  its  mark  to  a 
landscape  of  a  pure,  natural  wildness,  though 
thsrtnaeed  had  a  beaTIty  of  its  own,  a  more 
solemn  beauty,  though  not  so  near  to  the  heart. 
But  the  great  red-brick  house,  peering  through 
its  sun-blinds,  among  the  flower-beds,  with  a 
rookery  behind  in  the  tall  trees  of  a  grove,  and 
the  cupola  of  stable-buildings  am.ong  the  shrub- 
beries, that  one  saw  in  a  flash  as  the  train 
133 


v" 


134  Beside  Still  Waters 

emerged  from  the  low  cutting;  or  the  tiled 
roofs  of  houses,  with  an  old  mouldering  church- 
tower  peering  out  above  them,  in  a  gap  between 
green  downs ;  or  a  quiet  manor-house  among 
pastures,  seen  at  the  close  of  day  when  the 
shadows  began  to  lengthen,  gave  him  a  sense  of 
the  long  succession  of  peaceable  lives — the  boy 
returning  from  school  to  the  familiar  home,  or 
the  old  squire,  after  a  life  of  pleasant  activities, 
walking  among  the  well-known  fields,  and  know- 
ing that  he  must  soon  make  haste  to  be  gone 
and  leave  his  place  for  others.  There  was  a 
sense  of  romance  and  pathos  about  it  all;  and 
the  scenes  thus  unfolded  suddenly  before  his 
eyes  were  dear  to  him  because  they  had  been 
dear  to  others,  and  stood  for  so  much  old  tender- 
ness and  anxious  love.  There  was  always,  too, 
a  feeling  in  his  mind  of  how  easy,  how  sweet 
and  tranquil,  life  would  be  under  such  condi- 
tions. Seen  from  outside,  certain  lives,  lived  in 
beautiful  surroundings  and  tinged  with  seemly 
traditions,  seemed  to  have  a  romantic  quality, 
even  in  their  sufferings  and  sorrows.  No 
amount  of  experience,  no  accumulation  of  the 
certainty  that  life  was  interwoven  with  a  sordid 
and  dreary  fibre,  seemed  ever  to  dispel  this  il- 
lusion, just  as  sorrows  and  miseries  depicted  in 
a  book  or  in  a  drama  appeared  to  have  a 
romance  about  them  which,   seen  from  inside, 


Dreariness  i3S 

they  lacked.  There  were  in  Hugh's  own 
memory  a  few  places  and  a  few  houses,  where 
by  some  happy  fortune  the  hours  had  always 
been  touched  with  this  poetical  quality,  and 
into  which  no  touch  of  dreariness  had  ever 
entered.  Something  of  the  same  romance 
lingered  for  Hugh  over  certain  of  the  colleges  at 
Cambridge.  To  wander  through  their  courts, 
to  read  the  mysterious  names  inscribed  over 
unknown  doors,  to  think  of  the  long  succession 
of  inmates,  grave  or  light-hearted,  that^  lived 
within,  either  for  a  happy  space  of  youth,  or 
through  long  quiet  years ;  this  never  ceased  to 
communicate  to  him  a  certain  thrill  of  emotion. 
The  only  period  of  his  life  that  seemed  to 
Hugh  to  lack  this  quality  of  poetry  were  the 
years  of  his  official  life  in  London,  the  years  that 
the  locust  had  eaten.  He  did  not  grudge  hav- 
ing spent  them  so,  for  they  had  given  a  sort  of 
solidity  and  gravity  to  life ;  but  now  that  he 
was  free  to  live  as  he  chose,  he  determined  that 
he  would,  if  he  could,  so  spend  his  days,  that 
there  should  be  as  little  as  possible  of  this  dull 
and  ugly  quality  intermixed  with  them  ;  the 
sadness  and  incompleteness  of  countless  lives 
seemed  to  Hugh  to  arise  from  the  fact  that  so 
many  men  settled  down  to  mechanical  toil, 
which  first  robbed  them  of  their  freshness,  and 
then   routine  became  essential  to  them.     But 


136  Beside  Still  Waters 

Hugh  determined  that  neither  his  work  nor  his 
occupation  should  have  this  sunless  and  dismal 
quality ;  that  he  would  deliberately  esche\^  the 
things  that  brought  him  dreariness,  and  the 
people  who  took  a  mean  and  conventional  view; 
that  he  would  not  take  .up,  in  a  spirit  of  heavy 
rectTfude,  work  for  which  he  knew  himself  to  be 
unfit ;  and  that  such  mechanical  work  as  he  felt 
bound  to  undertake  should  be  regarded  by  him 
in  the  light  of  a  tonic,  which  should  enable  him 
to  return  to  his  chosen  work  with  a  sense  of 
gladness  and  relief. 

This  would  demand  a  certain  sustained  effort, 
he  foresaw.  But  whatever  qualities  he  pos- 
sessed, he  knew  that  he  could  reckon  upon  a 
vital  impatience  of  things  that  were  d^  and 
comrnon  ;  moreover  it  was  possible  to  determine 
that,  whatever  happened,  he  would  not  do  things 
in  a  dull  way  ;  so^much  depended  upon  how 
they  were  handled  and  executed.  One  of  the 
j^  >  dullest  things  in  the  world  was  the  multiplica- 
y^/tion  of  unnecessary  business.  So  many  people 
made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  by  minute 
organisation  the  success  of  a  system  could  be 
guaranteed.  Hugh  knew  that  thereal  secret 
was  to  select  the  right  personalities,  and  to  leave 
systems  elastic  and  simple,  and  that  thus  the 
best  results  were  achieved  ;  the  most  depressing 
thing  in  the  world  was  a  dull  person  administer- 


Romance  i37 

ing  faithfully  an  elaborate  system  ;  one  of  the 
most  inspiring  sights  was  an  original  man  mak- 
ing the  best  of  a  bad  system. 

And  so  Hugh  resolved  that  he  would  bring 
to  his  task,  his  leisure,  his  relations  with  others, 
his  exits  and  entrances,  his  silence  and  his 
speech,  a  freshness  and  a  zest,  no^direc|edJj3, 
surprising  or  interesting  others-— that  was  the 
most  vulgar  pvpfdiprih  nf  all— t^iil:  with  a.  ^^e- 

liberate  design  to  transmute,  as  by  the  touch 

-■  -        p  ".III..  ..11 -•■'•"  ' 

of  "the  magical  stone,  the  common  materials  of 
life  into  pure, gold.  He  would  endeavour  to 
discern  the  poetical  quality  in  everything  and 
in  every  one.  In  inanimate  things  this  was 
easy  enough,  for  they  were  already  full  of  pun- 
gent distinctness,  of  subtle  difference ;  it  was 
all  there,  waiting  merely  to  be  discerned.  With 
people  it  was  different,  because  there  were  so 
many  who  stared  solemnly  and  impenetrably, 
who  repelled  one  with  remarks  about  the 
weather  and  the  events  of  the  day,  as  a  man 
repels  a  barge  with  a  pole.  With  such  people 
it  would  be  necessary  to  try  a  number  of  con- 
versational flies  over  the  surface  of  the  sleeping 
pool,  in  the  hope  that  some  impulse,  some 
pleasant  trait  would  dart  irresistibly  to  the  sur- 
face, and  be  hauled  struggling  ashore.  Hugh 
had  seen,  more  than  once,  strange,  repressed, 
mournful  things  looking  out  of  the  guarded 


138  Beside  Still  Waters 

eyes  of  dreary  persons ;  and  it  would  be  his 
^/  business  to  entice  these  to  the  light.  He  de- 
termined, too,  to  cultivate  the  art  of  being 
_alone.  (There  were  many  people  in  the  world 
who  found  themselves  the  poorest  of  all  com- 
pany, and  Hugh  resolved  that  he  would  find 
his  own  society  the  most  interesting  of  all ;  he 
would  not  be  beaten  by  life,  as  so  many  people 
appeared  to  him  to  be.  Of  course,  he  knew 
that  there  were  threatening  clouds  in  the  sky, 
that  in  a  moment  might  burst  and  drench  the 
air  with  driving  rain.  But  Hugh  hoped  that 
his  attitude  of  curiosity  and  wonder  could  find 
food  for  high-hearted  reflection  even  there. 
The  imi3i£rsfiJ;eemM.._wLtJi_significance,  and  if 
God  had  bestowed  such  a  quality  with  rich 
abundance  everywhere,  there  must  be  a  still 
larger  store  of  it  in  His  own  eternal  heart.  The 
world,  was  full  of  surprises  ;  trees  drooped  their 
leaves  over  screening  walls,  houses  had  backs 
as  well  as  fronts ;  music  was  heard  from  shut- 
tered windows,  lights  burned  in  upper  rooms. 
There  were  a  thousand  pretty  secrets  in  the 
ways  of  people  to  each  other.  Then,  too,  there 
were  ideas,  as  thick  as  sparrows  in  an  ivied 
wall.  One  had  but  to  clap  one's  hands  and 
cry  out,  and  there  was  a  fluttering  of  innumer- 
able wings  ;  life  was  as  full  of  bubbles,  forming, 
rising  into  amber  foam,  as  a  glass  of  sparkling 


The  Choice  of  Work        139 

wine.  That  cup  he  would  drink,  and  try  its 
savour.  There  would  be  times  when  he  would 
flag,  no  doubt,  but  it  should  not  be  from  any 
failure  of  desire.  He  would  try  to  be  tem- 
perate,  so  as  to  keep  the  inner  eye  unclouded  ; 
and  he  would  try  to  be  perfectly  simple  and 
sincere,  deciding  questions  on  their  own  merits, 
and  with  no  conventional  judgment.  Such  an 
attitude  might  be  labelled  by  peevish  persons, 
with  prejudices  rather  than  preferences,  a  species 
of  intellectual  Epii:ureanjsm.  But  Hugh  de- 
sired not  to  limit  his  gaze  by  the  phenomena 
of  life,  but  to  keep  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  fur- 
ther horizon  ;  the  light  might  dawn  when  it  was 
least  expected ;  but  the  best  chance  of  catch- 
ing the  first  faint  lights  of  that  othoy  sunrise, 
was  to  have  learned  expectancy,  to  have  trained 
observation,  and  to  have  kept  one's  heart 
unfettered  and  undimmed. 

He  saw  that  the  fir«;i-  p«?<^pt^,tia]  (?f  ^U  ^^'^  tr* 

group  hi*^  iJf*"  rnnnd   a  r^nt;r<^  gf  «?ome  kind,  to 

have  a  chosen  work,  to  which  he  should  be 
vowe3~as"By  a  species  of  consecration ;  it  was 
in  choosing  their  life-work,  he  thought,  that  so 
many  peoj/le  failed.  He  saw  men  of  high  abil- 
ity, year  after  year,  who  continued  to  put  off 
the  decision  as  to  what  their  work  should  be, 
until  they  suddenly  found  themselves  con- 
fronted  with    the    necessity    of    earning  their 


I40  Beside  Still  Waters 

living,  and  then  their  choice  had  to  be  made 
in  a  hurry  ;  they  pushed  the  nearest  door  open 
and  went  in ;  and  then  habit  began  to  forge 
chains   about   them ;  and    soon,   however   un- 
congenial  their   life  might   be,  they  were  in- 
capable of  abandoning  it.     There  were  some 
melancholy  instances  at  Cambridge  of  men  of 
high  intellectual  power,  who  had  drifted  thus 
into  the  academical  life  without  any  aptitude 
for  it,  without  educational   zeal,  without   in- 
terest in  young  people.     Such  men  went  on 
tamely  year  after  year,  passing  from  one  college 
j^  office  to  another,  inadequately  paid,  with  no 
^   belief  in  the  value   of   their  work,  averse   to 
'   trying    experiments,    fond    of    comfort,    only 
■  anxious  to  have  as  little  trouble  as  possible, 
,  expending  their  ingenuity  of  mind  in  academi- 
cal meetings,  criticising  the  verbal  expression 
of  reports  with  extreme  subtlety,  too  fastidious 
to  design  original  work,  too  much  occupied  for 
patient  research,  and  ending  either  in  a  bitter 
I  sense  of  unrecognised  merit,  or  in  a  frank  and 
unashamed  indolence. 

Hugh  saw  that  in  choosing  the  work  of  one's 
life,  one  must  not  be  guided  by  Necessity,  or 
even  mere  rectitude.  Work  embraced  from  a 
sense  of  duty  was  like  driving  a  chariot  in  sea- 
sand.  One  must  have  an  enthusiasm  for  one's 
task,  and  a  delight  in  it;  for  only  by  enjoyment 


The  Choice  of  Work         141 

of  the  results  could  one  tolerate  the  mechanical 
labour  inseparable  from  all  intellectual  toil.  It 
was  true  that  he  had  himself  drifted  into  offi- 
cial duties,  but  here  Hugh  saw  the  guidance  of 
a  very  tender  providence,  which  had  provided  ,, 
him  with  a  species  of  disciplinjg  that  he  could  i 
never  have  spontaneously  practised.  His  great  ji 
need  had  been  the  application  of  some  harden- 
ing and  hammering  process,  such  as  should  give 
him  that  sort  of  concentrated  alertness  which 
his  education  had  failed  to  bestow  ;  and  none 
the  less  tenderly  provided,  it  seemed  to  Hugh,  || 
was  the  irresistible  impulse  to  arise  and  go,  ' 
which  had  come  upon  him  when  the  process 
was  completed.  And  now  he  was  free,  with  an 
immense  appetite  for  speculation,  for  intellec- 
tual pleasure,  for  the  criticism  of  life,  for  obser- 
vation. It  was  the  quality,  the  finer  essence  of 
things  and  thoughts  that  mattered.  To  some 
was  given  the  desire  to  organise  and  manage 
the  world,  to  others  the  instinct  for  perception, 
for  analysis,  for  the  development  of  ideas.  It 
was  not  that  one  kind  of  work  was  better  than 
the  other;  both  were  needed,  both  were  noble; 
but  Hugh  had  no  doubt  on  which  side  of  the 
battle  he  was  himself  meant  to  fight.  And  so 
he  determined  that  he  would  devote  his  life  to 
the  work,  and  that  he  would  not  allow  any  ex- 
cessive intrusion  of  extraneous  elements.    The 


142  Beside  Still  Waters 

blessing  of  the  academical  life  was  that  it  en- 
tailed a  certaiQ_aniount  of  social  intercourse  ;  it 
compelled  one  to  come  into  contact  with  a  large 
variety  of  people.  Wit^ut  this  Hugh  felt 
that  his  oi^tlook  would  have  become  narrow 
and  self-centred.  He  knew  of  course  that  there 
would  be  times  when  it  would  seem  to  him  that 
his  life  was  an  ineffective  one,  when  he  would 
envy  the  men  of  affairs,  when  he  would  wonder 
what,  after  all,  his  own  performance  amounted 
to.  But  Hugh  felt  that  the  great  lack_ofjTTiany 
li^js_was  the  failure  to  perceive  the  interest  of 
ideas  ;  that  many  men  and  women  went  through 
existence  in  a  dull  and  mechanical  way,  raking 
together  the  straws  and  dust  of  the  street;  and 
he  thought  that  a  man  might  do  a  great  work 
if  he  could  put  a  philosophy  of  life  into  an 
accessible  shape.  The  great  need  was  the  need 
of  sim^lifiication  ;  the  world  was  full  of  palpi- 
tating interests,  of  beauty,  of  sweetness,  of 
delight.  But  many  people  had  no  criterion  of 
values ;  they_  filled  their  lives  with  £etty_en- 
gagements,  and  smilingly  lamented  that  they 
had  iio  time  to  think  or_read.  For  such  people 
the  sun  rose  over  dewy  fields,  in  the  freshness 
of  the  countryside,  in  vain:  in  vain,  the  sunset 
glared  among  the  empurpled  cloud-banks  ;  in 
vain,  the  moon  rose  pale  over  the  hushed  gar- 
den-walks, while  the  nightingale,  hidden  in  the 


Dulness  i43 

dark  heart  of  the  bush,  broke  into  passionate 
song.     And  even  if  it  were  argued  that  it  was 
possible  to  be  sensible  and  virtuous  without 
being  responsive  to  the  appeal  of  nature,  what 
did  such  people  make  of  their  social  life  ?  they 
made  no  excursions  into  the  hearts  and  minds  |' 
of  others  ;  their   religion   was  a  conventional  \ 
thing  ;  they  went  to  concerts,  where  the  violins  * 
thrilled  with  sweet  passion,  and  the  horns  com- 
plained with  a  lazy  richness,  that  they  might 
chatter  in  gangways  and  nod  to  their  friends. 
It  was  all  so  elaborate,  so  hollow  !  and  yet  in  the  «; 
minds   of   these  buzzing,  voluble  persons  one  , 
could  generally  discern  a  trickle  of  unconven- 
tional feeling,  which  could  have  made  glad  the 
sun-scorched  pleasance. 

Hugh  determined  with  all  his  might^^hat  he 
would  try  to  preach  this  simple  gospel ;  that  he 
would  praise  and  uphold  the  doctrine  of  sincer- 
ity, of  appreciation,  of  joy.  He  made  up  his 
mind  that  he  would  not  be^  drawn  into  the 
wRlrfpool,  that  he  would  intermingle  long  spac- 
es of  eager  solitude  with  his  life,  that  he  would 
meditate,  reflect,  enjoy  ;  that  he  would  try  to 
discern  the  significance  of  all  things  seen  or  felt, 
and  practise  a  disposition  to  approach  all  phe- 
nomena, whether  pleasant  or  painful,  in  a  critical 
mood  ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  resolved  that 
his  criticism  should  not  be  a  mere  solvent ;  that 


144  Beside  Still  Waters 

he  would  strive  to  discern  not  the  dulness,  the 
ugliness,  the  dreariness  of  life,  but  its  ardours, 
its  passions,  its  transporting  emotions,  its  beau- 
ties. That  was  a  task  for  a  lifetime.  What- 
ever was  doubtful,  this  was  certain,  that  one 
was  set  in  a  mysterious,  attractive,  complex 
place ;  if  one  regarded  it  carelessly,  it  seemed 
a  commonplace  affair  enough,  full  of  material 
activities,  dull  necessities,  foolish  stirrings,  low 
purposes  ;  but  if  one  looked  a  little  closer,  there 
were  strange,  dim,  beautiful  figures  moving  in 
and  out,  evanescent  and  shadowy,  behind  the 
nearer  and  more  distracting  elements.  Here 
was  hope,  with  a  far-off  gaze,  beauty  with 
mournful  yearning  eyes,  love  with  finger  on  lip 
and  dreamful  gaze.  It  was  here  that  the  larger, 
the  holier  life  lay.  What  was  necessary  was 
to  keep  apart,  with  deliberate  purpose,  from  all 
fruitless  vexations,  dull  anxieties,  sordid  de- 
signs. To-jiejti^ch  one's  self  not  from  life,  but 
from  the  sgum  and  foam  of  life  ;  to  realise  that 
the  secret  lay  in  the  middle  of  it  all,  and  that 
/|  it  was  to  be  discerned  not  by  fastidious  absten- 
I  tion,  not  by  chilly  asceticism,  but  by  welcoming 
all  nobler  impulses,  all  spiritual  influences  ;  not 
by  starving  body  or  mind,  but  by  selecting 
one's  food  carefully  and  temperately.  If  a 
man,  Hugh  thought,  could  live  life  in  this 
spirit,  reasonable,  kindly,  humble,  sincere,  he 


A  Creed  i45 

could  encourage  others  to  the  same  simplicity 
of  aim.     To  be  selfish  was  to  miss  the  beauty    u^ 
of  the  whole ;  for  the  essence  of  the  situation 
was  to  reveal  to  others,  by  example  and  by 
precept,  what  they  already  so  dimly  knew. 

To  find  out  what  one  could  do,  where  one 
could  help,  and  to  work  with  all  one's  might  ; 
to  live  strongly  and  purely  ;  not  to  be  dissuaded 
by  comment  or  discouraged  by  lack  of  sym- 
pathy ;  to  meet  others  simply  and  frankly; 
to  be  more  desirous  to  ascertain  other  points  , 
of  view  than  to  propound  one's  own ;  not  to  '  / 
be  ashamed  to  speak  unaffectedly  of  one's  \ 
own  admirations  and  hopes;  not  to  desire 
recognition  ;  not  to  yield  to  personal  motives ; 
not  to  assent  to  conventional  principles  blindly, 
nor  to  dissent  from  them  mechanically  ;  never  to 
be  contemptuous  or  intolerant ;  to  foresee 
contingencies  and  not  to  be  deterred  by  them  ; 
to  be  open  to  all  impressions  ;  to  be  tender 
to  all  sincere  scruples ;  not  to  be  censorious 
or  hasty;  not  to  anticipate  opposition  ;  to  1Be 
neither  timid  nor  rash  ;  to  seek  peace  ;  to  be  gen- 
tle rather  than  conscientious  ;  to  be  appreciative 
rather  than  critical — on  these  lines  Hugh 
wished  to  live  ;  he  desired  no  deference,  no 
personal  domination  ;  but  neither  did  he  wish 
to  reject  responsibility  if  he  were  consulted 
and  trusted.     Above  all    things    he  hoped  to 


\ 


146  Beside  Still  Waters 

resist  the  temptation  of  taking  soundings,  of 
calculating  his  successes.  Fame  and  renown 
allured  him,  none  but  he  could  say  how  much ; 
but  he  knew  in  his  heart  that  he  contemned 
their  specious  claims,  and  he  hoped  that  they 
would  some  day  cease  to  trouble  him.  He 
knew  that  much  depended  upon  health  and 
vigour ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  he  believed 
that  the  most  transforming  power  in  the 
world  was  the  desire  to  be  different :  why  he 
could  not  stride  into  his  kingdom  and  realise 
his  ideal  all  at  once,  he  could  not  divine ; 
but  meanwhile  he  would  desire  the  best,  and 
look  forward  in  confidence  and  hope. 


V^ 


XV 

Hugh  was  seized,  one  bright  February 
morning  of  clear  sun  and  keen  winds,  with  a 
sudden  weariness  of  his  work.  This  rebellious 
impulse  did  not  often  visit  him,  because  he 
loved  his  work  very  greatly,  and  there  were  no 
hours  so  happy  as  those  which  were  so  engaged. 
But  to-day  he  thought  of  himself  suddenly  that, 
lost  thus  in  his  delightful  labour,  he  was  for- 
getting to  live.  How  strange  it  was  that  the 
hours  one  loved  most  were  the  hours  of  work 
that  sped  past  unconsciously,  when  one  stood 
apart,  absorbed  in  dreams,  from  the  current  of 
things.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  was  like  the 
Lady  of  Shalott,  so  intent  upon  her  web  and 
the  weaving  of  it,  that  she  thought  of  the  mov- 
ing forms  upon  the  road  beyond  the  river 
merely  as  things  that  could  be  depicted  in  her 
coloured  threads.  He  took  up  the  Pilgriffts 
Progress  and  sat  a  long  while  reading  it,  and 
smiling  as  he  read  ;  he  wondered  why  so  many 
critics  spoke  so  slightingly  of  the  second  part, 
which  seemed  to  him  in  some  ways  a.Tmdst  more 
147 


/ 


148  Beside  Still  Waters 

beautiful  than  the  first.  There  was  not  perhaps 
quite  the  same  imaginativeness  or  zest ;  but 
there  was  more  instinctive  art,  because  the 
writer  was  retracing  the  same  path,  lodging  at 
the  same  grave  houses,  encountering  the  same 
terrors,  and  yet  representing  everything  as 
mirrored  in  a  different  quality  of  mind ;  the 
mind  of  a  faithful  woman,  and  of  the  boys  and 
maidens  who  walked  with  her  upon  the  pil- 
grimage. There  was  not  quite  the  same 
romance,  perhaps,  but  there  was  more  tender- 
ness than  sweetness.  It  came  less  from  the 
mind  and  more  from  the  heart. 

Hugh  smiled  to  see  how  rapidly  the  dangers  of 
the  road  must  have  diminished,  if  Mr.  Greathea;rt, 
had  often  convoyed  a  party  on  their  way.  That 
mighty  man  laid  about  him  with  such  valour, 
sliced  off  the  heads  and  arms  of  giants  with 
such  cordial  good-humour,  that  there  could 
hardly,  Hugh  thought,  have  been  for  the  next 
company  any  adventures  left  at  all.  Moreover 
so  many  of  the  stubborn  and  ill-favoured  per- 
sons had  come  by  a  bad  end,  were  hung  in 
chains  by  the  road,  or  lying  pierced  with  sor- 
rows, that  later  pilgrims  would  have  to  complain 
of  lack  of  bracing  incidents.  Still,  how  delicate 
and  gentle  a  journey  it  was,  and  with  what 
caressing  fondness  the  writer  helped  these 
young  and  faltering  feet  along  the  way.     What 


The  Pilgrim's  Progress        149 

pretty  and  absurd  sights  they  saw!  How 
laden  they  were  with  presents !  Christiana 
had  Mr.  Skill's  boxes,  twelve  in  all,  of  medicine, 
with  no  doubt  a  vial  or  two  of  tears  of  repent- 
ance to  wash  the  pills  down ;  she  had  bottles  of 
wine,  parched  corn,  figs,  and  raisins  from  the 
Lord  of  the  place,  to  say  nothing  of  the  golden 
anchor  which  the  maidens  gave  her,  which  must 
have  impeded  her  movements. 

He  read  with  a  smile,  which  was  not  wholly 
one  of  amusement,  Mr.  Greatheart's  admirable 
argument  as  to  how  the  process  of  redemption 
was  executed.  The  Redeemer,  it  seemed,  had 
no  less  than  four  kinds  of  righteousness,  three 
to  keep,  which  he  could  not  do  without,  and  one 
kind  to  give  away.  Every  detail  of  the  case 
was  supported  by  a  little  cluster  of  marginal 
texts,  and  no  doubt  it  appeared  as  logical  and 
simple  to  the  author  as  a  problem  or  an  equa- 
tion. But  what  an  extraordinary  form  of  re- 
ligion it  all  was !  There  was  not  the  least  mis- 
giving in  the  mind  of  the  author.  The  Bible  ,  / 
was  to  him  a  perfectly  unquestioned  manifesto 
of  the  mind  of  God,  and  solved  everything 
and  anything.  And  yet  the  whole  basis  of  the 
pilgrimage  was  insecure.  There  was  no  free 
gift  of  grace  at  all.  Some  few  fortunate  people 
were  started  on  the  pilgrimage  by  being  given 
an  overpowering  desire  to  set  out,  while  the 


ISO  Beside  Still  Waters 

pleasant  party  who  met  at  Madam  Wanton's 
house,  Mr.  Lightmind  and  Mr.  Love-the-flesh, 
with  Mr.  Lechery  and  Mrs.  Filth,  and  passed 
the  afternoon  with  music  and  dancing,  were 
troubled  by  no  divine  misgivings. 

Then,  too,  the  Lord  of  the  way  found  no 
difficulty  in  easing  the  path  of  the  gentler  sort 
of  pilgrims.  He  kept  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
comparatively  quiet  for  Christiana  and  her  ten- 
der band.  The  ugly  thing  that  came  to  meet 
them,  and  the  Lion  that  padded  after  them, 
were  not  suffered  to  draw  near.  The  hobgob- 
lins were  stayed  from  howling.  It  never 
seemed  to  have  occurred  to  Bunyan  to  ques- 
tionwh^  the  Lord  of  the  way  had  ever  allowed 
this  unhallowed  crew  to  gather  in  the  valley  at 
all.  If  he  could  restrain  them,  and  if  Mr. 
Greatheart  could  hew  the  giants  in  pieces,  why 
could  not  the  whole  nest  of  hornets  have  been 
smoked  out  once  and  for  all  ?  Even  the  Slough 
of  Despond  could  not  be  mended  with  all  the 
cartloads  of  promises  and  texts  that  were  shot 
there.  And  yet  for  all  that,  when  one  came  to 
reflect  upon  it,  this  Calvinistic  scheme  of  elec- 
tion and  reprobation  did  seem  to.  correspond  in 
a  terrible  manner  with  the  phenomena  of  the 
world.  One  saw  people  around  one,  some  of 
whom  seemed  to  start  with  an  instinct  for  all 
that   was   pure   and    noble,   and   again   others 


The  Pilgrimage  151 

seemed  to  begin  with  no  preference  for  virtue 
at  all,  but  to  be  dogged  with  inherited  corrup- 
tion  from  the  outset.  The  mistake  which 
morahsts  made  was  to  treat  all  alike,  as  if  all 
men  had  the  moral  instinct  equally  developed  ; 
and  yet  Hugh  had  met  not  a  few  men  who 
were  restrained  by  absolutely  no  scruples,  ex- 
cept prudential  ones,  and  the  dread  of  incurring 
conventional  penalties,  from  yielding  to  every 
bodily  impulse.  If  truth  and  purity  and  unself- 
ishness were  the  divine  things,  if  happiness  lay 
there,  why  were  there  such  multitudes  of  peo- 
ple created  who  had  no  implanted  desire  to 
attain  to  these  virtues? 

It  was  in  the  grip  of  such  thoughts  that 
Hugh  left  the  house  and  walked  alone  through 
the  streets  of  the  town,  as  Christian  might 
have  walked  in  the  City  of  Destruction.  What 
was  one  to  fly  from  ?  and  whither  was  the  pil- 
grimage to  tend  ?  The  streets  were  full  of 
busy  comfortable  people,  some,  like  Mr.  Brisk, 
men  of  considerable  breeding,  some  again,  like 
the  two  ill-favoured  ones,  marked  for  doom ; 
here  and  there  was  a  young  woman  whose 
name  might  have  been  Dull.  What  was  one's 
duty  in  the  matter?  Was  one  indeed  to 
repent,  with  groans  and  cries,  for  a  corruption 
of  heart  that  had  been  bestowed  upon  one 
without  any  choice  of  one's  own  ?     Was  one 


y 


152  Beside  Still  Waters 

bound  to  overwhelm  one's  companions  with 
abundance  of  pious  suggestions,  to  rebuke  vice, 
to  rejoice  in  the  disasters  that  befell  the 
ungodly  ?  It  seemed  a  hopeless  business  from 
first  to  last ;  of  course,  if  one  had  Bunyan's 
simple  faith,  if  one  could  believe  that  at  a  cer- 
tain moment,  on  the  Hill  of  Calvary,  a  thing 
had  been  accomplished  which  had  in  an  instant 
changed  the  whole  scheme  of  the  world ;  that  a 
wrathful  Creator,  possessed  hitherto  by  a  fierce 
and  vindicative  anger  with  the  frail  creatures 
whom  he  moulded  by  thousands  from  the  clay, 
was  in  an  instant  converted  into  a  tender  and 
compassionate  father,  his  thirst  for  vengeance 
satisfied,  it  would  be  plain  enough;  but  Hugh 
felt  in  the  depths  of  his  heart  that  whatever 
else  might  be  true,  that  was  not ;  or  at  least  if 
it  had  any  semblance  of  truth  in  it,  it  simply 
consummated  a  mystery  so  appalling  that  one 
must  merely  resign  all  hope  and  courage. 

What  could  one  make  of  a  Gospel  that  could 
lend  any  colour  to  a  theory  such  as  this  ?  Was 
it  the  fault  of  the  Gospel,  or  was  the  error 
rooted  in  human  nature,  a  melancholy  misin- 
terpretation of  a  high  truth  ?  It  seemed  to 
Hugh  that  the  mistake  lay  there  ;  it  seemed  to 
arise  from  the  acceptance  by  the  Puritans  of 
the  Bible  as  all  one  book,  and  by  the  deliberate 
extrusion  of  the  human  element  from  it.  Christ, 


Interpretations  1 53 

in  the  Gospel,  seemed  to  teach,  so  far  as  Hugh 
could  understand,  not  that  he  had  effected  any 
change  in  the  nature  or  disposition  of  God,  but 
that  He  had  always  been  a  Father  of  men,  full 
of  infinite  compassion  and  love ;  the  miracle  of 
Christ's  life  was  the  showing  how  a  Divine 
spirit,  bound  by  all  the  sad  limitations  of  mor- 
tality, could  yet  lead  a  life  of  inner  peace  and 
joy,  a  life  of  perfect  trust  and  simplicity.  The 
clouding  of  the  pure  Gospel  came  from  the 
vehement  breath  of  His  interpreters.  His  later 
interpreters  were  men  in  whose  minds  was  in- 
stinctively implanted  the  old  harsh  doctrine  of 
man's  perverse  corruption,  and  the  dark  severity 
of  God's  justice ;  and  thus  the  Puritans  were 
misled,  because  they  laid  an  equal  stress  upon 
the  whole  of  the  Bible,  and  spoke  of  it  as  all 
of  equal  and  Divine  authority.  Instead  of  re- 
jecting, as  faulty  human  conceptions,  what  did 
not  harmonise  with  the  purer  Gospel  light,  they 
sought  and  found  in  the  Gospel  a  confirma- 
tion of  the  older  human  view.  They  treated 
the  whole  collection  of  books  as  all  equally 
true,  all  equally  important,  and  thus  they  were 
bent  on  seeing  that  the  Gospel  should  fulfil 
rather  than  supersede  the  Law.  This  was  in 
part  the  spirit  of  St.  Paul ;  and  thus  the  Puri- 
tan Gospel  was  the  Gospel  of  the  Saviour.  To 
Hugh  the  Old  Testament  was  a  very  wonderful 


154  Beside  Still  Waters 

thing,  wonderful  because  it  showed  the  rise  of 
a  spirit  of  personal  righteousness  in  the  world, 
a  spirit  that  worshipped  morality  with  the  same 
vehemence  and  enthusiasm  as  that  with  which 
the  Greeks  worshipped  beauty.  And  thus  be- 
cause they  had  loved  righteousness  and  hated 
iniquity,  there  had  been  given  to  their  imperi- 
ous nation  the  reward  that  the  humanity  of 
their  race  should  be  chosen  to  enshrine  the 
Divine  spirit  of  the  Saviour. 

Hugh  felt  that  the  weakness  pf  the  ecclesias- 
tical position  was  its  obstinate  refusal  to  admit 
the  possibilities  of  future  development.  A  cen- 
tury ago,  a  man  who  ventured  to  hint  that  the 
story  of  Noah's  Ark  might  not  be  historically 
and  exactly  true  would  have  been  pronounced 
a  dangerous  heretic.  Now  no  one  was  required 
to  afifirm  his  belief  in  it.  Nowadays  the  belief 
in  the  miraculous  element  even  of  the  New 
Testament  was  undoubtedly  weakening.  Yet 
the  orthodox  believer  still  pronounced  a 
Christian  unsound  who  doubted  it. 

Here  lay  the  insecurity  of  the  orthodox 
champions.  They  stumbled  on,  fully  accepting, 
when  they  could  not  help  themselves,  the  pro- 
gressive developments  of  thought,  yet  loudly 
condemning  any  one  who  was  a  little  further 
ahead  upon  the  road,  until  they  had  caught 
him  up. 


The  Pilgrimage  155 

Still,  the  old  Puritan  poet,  for  all  his  over- 
preciseness  of  definition,  all  his  elaborate  scheme 
of  imputed  righteousness,  all  his  dreary  meta- 
physics, had  yet  laid  his  hand  upon  the  essential       / 
truth.     Life  was  indeed  a  pilgrimage  ;   and  as       i 
the  new  law,  the  law  of  science,  was  investigated       | 
and  explored,  it  seemed  hardly  less  arbitrary,        \ 
hardly  more  loving  than  the  old.  It  was  a  scheme 
of  infinite  delay ;  no  ardent  hopes,  no  burning 
conceptions  of  justice  and  truth  could  hasten  or 
retard  the  working  of  the  inflexible  law,  which 
blessed   without    reference   to   goodness,   and 
punished  without  reference  to  morality.  No  one 
could  escape  by  righteousness,  no  man  could 
plead  his  innocence  or  his  ignorance.     One  was 
surrounded  by  inexplicable  terrors,  one's  path 
was  set  with  gins  and  snares.     Here  the  smoke 
and  the  flame  burst  forth,  or  the  hobgoblins 
roared  in  concert ;  here  was  a  vale  of  peace,  or  a 
house  of  grave  and  kindly  entertainment ;  and 
sometimes  from  the  hill-tops  or  the  land  of  Beu- 
lah,  there  seemed  indeed  to  be  a  radiant  vision, 
dim-descried,  of  towers  and  pearly  gates,  a  high 
citadel  of  heavenly  peace.     But  how  little  one 
learned  even  of  one's  own  strength  and  weak- 
ness !     The  one  instinct,  which  might  itself  be 
a  delusion,  was  that  one  had  a  choice  in  the    '■ 
matter,  a  will,  a  power  to  act  or  to  refrain  from    / 
acting  ;  there  was  a  deep-seated  impulse  to  fare  j 


156  Beside  Still  Waters 

onward,  to  hope,  to  struggle.  It  was  useless  to 
blame  the  mysterious  conditions  of  the  journey, 
for  they  were  certainly  there.  The  only  faith 
that  was  possible  was  the  belief  that  the  truth 
was  somehow  larger,  nobler,  more  beautiful  than 
one  could  conceive  it  ought  to  be ;  and  there 
was  a  restfulness,  when  one  apprehended  what 
seemed  so  dark  at  first,  in  the  knowledge  that 
one's  character  and  environment  alike  were 
not  one's  own  choice  ;  the  only  way  was  to  keep 
one's  eye  fixed  upon  the  furthest  hope,  and 
never  to  cease  imploring  the  Power  that  made 
us  what  we  were,  to  give  not  abundant,  but  suf- 
ficient, strength,  and  to  guide  us  into  acting,  so 
far  as  we  had  power  to  act,  as  He  willed. 

This  then  became  for  Hugh  his  practical  re- 
ligion ;  to  commit  himself  unceasingly,  in  joy  and 
trouble  alike,  in  the  smallest  matters,  to  the 
Eternal  will ;  until  he  grew  to  feel  that  if  there 
were  anything  true  in  the  world,  it  was  the  power 
of  that  perpetual  surrender.  It  was  surprising  to 
him  to  find  how  anxiety  melted  into  tranquillity, 
if  one  could  but  do  that.  Not  only,  he  learned, 
must  great  decisions  be  laid  before  God,  but  the 
smallest  acts  of  daily  life.  How  often  one  felt 
the  harassing  weight  of  small  duties,  the  dis- 
tasteful business,  the  anxious  conversation,  the 
dreary  occasion  ;  fatigue,  disappointment,  care, 
uncertainty,  timidity  !    If  one  could  but  put  the 


The  Essence  of  the  Situation    157 

matter  into  the  hands  of  God|  instead  of  rehears- 
ing and  calculating  and  anticipating,  what  a 
peace  flowed  into  one's  spirit !  Difficulties 
melted  away  like  mist  before  it.  The  business 
was  tranquilly  accomplished  ;  the  interview 
that  one  dreaded  provided  its  own  obvious  so- 
lution, vexations  were  healed,  troubles  were 
suddenly  revealed  as  marvellously  unimportant. 
One  blundered  still,  went  perversely  wrong, 
yielded  falteringly  to  an  impulse  knowing  it  to 
be  evil ;  but  even  such  events  had  a  wholesome 
humiliation  about  them  which  brought  healing 
with  it.  The  essence  of  the  whole  situation  was 
to  have  in  one's  heart  the  romance  of  pilgrimage, 
to  expect  experience,  both  sweet  and  bitter,  to 
desire  the  goal  rather  than  the  prize  ;  and  to 
find  the  jewels  of  patience,  hopefulness,  and 
wisdom  by  the  way,  where  one  had  least  ex- 
pected them. 


XVI 

Hugh,  one  Sunday,  in  walking  alone  outside 
Cambridge,  went  for  some  considerable  time  be- 
hind a  party  of  young  men  and  boys,  who  were 
out  for  a  stroll.  He  observed  them  with  a  dis- 
gustful curiosity.  They  were  over-dressed;  they 
talked  loudly  and  rudely,  and  so  far  as  Hugh 
could  hear  both  coarsely  and  unamusingly. 
They  laughed  boisterously,  they  made  offensive 
remarks  about  humble  people  who  passed  them. 
It  was  the  height  of  humour  to  push  each  other 
unexpectedly  into  the  ditch  at  the  side  of  the 
road,  and  then  their  laughter  became  uproari- 
ous. It  was  harmless  enough,  but  it  was  all  so 
ugly  and  insolent,  that  Hugh  thought  that  he 
had  seldom  seen  anything  which  was  so  singu- 
larly and  supremely  unattractive.  The  per- 
formance seemed  to  have  no  merit  in  it  from 
any  point  of  view.  These  youths  were  no  doubt 
exulting  in  the  pride  of  their  strength,  but  the 
only  thing  that  they  really  enjoyed  was  that  the 
people  who  met  them  should  be  disconcerted 
and  distressed.  Making  every  allowance  for 
158 


Humanity  159 

thoughtlessness  and  high  spirits,  it  seemed  un- 
necessary that  these  quahties  should  manifest 
themselves  so  unpleasingly.  Hugh  wondered 
whether,  as  democracy  learned  its  strength,  hu- 
manity was  indeed  becoming  more  vulgar,  more 
inconsiderate,  more  odious.  Singly,  perhaps, 
these  very  boys  might  be  sensiBIe  and  good- 
humoured  people  enough, butassociationseemed 
only  to  develop  all  that  was  worst  in  them. 
And  yet  they  were  specimens  of  humanity  at 
its  strongest  and  cheerfullest.  They  were  the 
hope  of  the  race  — for  the  same  thing  was  prob- 
ably going  on  all  over  England — and  they  would 
no  doubt  develop  into  respectable  and  virtuous 
citizens  ;  but  the  spectacle  of  their  joy  was  one 
that  had  no  single  agreeable  feature.  These 
loutish,  rowdy,  loud-talking,  intolerable  young 
men'wefe  a  blot  upon  the  sweet  day,  the  pleas- 
ant" ICbuntry  side.  Probably,  Hugh  thought, 
there  was  something  sexual  beneath  it  all,  and 
the  insolence  of  the  group  was  in  some  dim  way 
concerned  with  the  instinct  for  impressing 
and  captivating  the  female  heart.  Perhaps 
the  more  demure  village  maidens  who  met 
them  felt  that  there  was  something  dash- 
ing and  even  chivalrous  about  these  young 
squires. 

There  came  into  Hugh's  mind  the  talk  of  a 
friend  who  had  been  staying  with  him,  a  man  of 


i6o  Beside  Still  Waters 

lofty  socialistic  ideals,  who  spoke  much  and  elo- 
quently of  the  worship  of  humanity.  _  Reflect- 
ing upon  the  phrase,  Hugh  felt  that  he  could 
attach  no  sort  of  meaning  to  it.  What  was  the 
humanity  that  one  was  to  worship.?  Was  it 
the  glory  of  the  average  man  ?  Was  it  the  mem- 
ory of  the  past?  Was  it  the  possibility  of  the 
future?  It  seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  an  impossi- 
ble abstraction.  He  had  said  as  much  to  his 
friend,  who  had  replied  that  it  was  like  the  wor- 
ship of  Nature,  which  Hugh  himself  practised. 
But  Hugh  replied  that  he  did  not  worship  Na- 
ture at  all.  There  was  much  in  Nature  that  he 
did  not  understand,  much  that  he  feared  and 
disliked.  There  was  an  abundance  of  beautiful 
things  in  Nature  that  he  worshipped,  not  Na- 
ture as  a  whole;  there  was  enough,  he  said,  in 
Nature  that  was  desirable,  to  give  him  a  kind 
of  hope  that  there  was  some  high  and  beautiful 
thought  behind  it ;  at  which  his  friend  became 
eloquent,  veiling,  Hugh  thought,  a  great  con- 
fusion of  mind  behind  a  liberal  use  of  rhetoric, 
and  spoke  of  suffering,  toiling,  sorrowing, 
onward-looking  humanity,  its  impassioned  rela- 
tions, its  great  wistful  heart.  Hugh  again, 
could  not  understand  him  ;  he  thought  that  his 
friend  formed  some  exotic  and  fanciful  concep- 
tion, arrived  at  by  subtracting  from  humanity  all 
that  was  not  pathetic  and  solemn  and  dignified, 


Humanity  i6i 

and  then  fusing  the  residue  into  a  sort  of  cor- 
poreal entity.  He  did  not  see  any  truth  or  reality 
about  the  conception.  It  seemed  to  him  as  un- 
real as  though  one  had  personified  the  Great 
Western  Railway  into  a  sort  of  gigantic  form, 
striding  westward,  covered  with  packages  of 
merchandise,  and  carrying  a  typical  human 
being,  as  St.  Christopher  carried  the  Sacred 
Child  across  the  flood.  It  was  pure  anthro- 
pomorphism. 

HuglT  could  understand  a  personal  relation, 
even  the  passionate  idealisation  of  an  individual. 
He  could  conceive  of  the  latter  as  givin^'one 
a  higher  idea  of  the  possibilities  of  the  human 
race:  but  to  lump  a  vast  and  complex  system 
together,  to  concentrate  unknown  races,  dead 
and  living,  negroes.  Chinamen,  Homeric  heroes 
and  palaeolithic  men,  into  one  definite  con- 
ception, and  to  worship  it,  seemed  to  Hugh 
an  almost  grotesque  thought.  He  could  con- 
ceive of  a  species  of  Pantheism,  in  which  the 
object  of  one's  awe  and  worship  was  the  vast 
force  underlying  all  existing  things;  but  even 
so  it  seemed  necessary  to  Hugh  to  focus  it  all 
into  one  personal  force.  The  essence  of  wor- 
ship seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  that  the  thing 
worshipped  should  have  unity  and  individual- 
ity. It  seemed  to  him  as  impossible  to  worship 
a  thing  of  which  he  himself  was  a  part,  as  to 


1 62  Beside  Still  Waters 

demand  that  a  cat  should  adore  the  principle 
of  felinity. 

The  essence  of  the  worid,  of  life,  to  Hugh 
lay  in  the  sense  of  his  own  individuality.  He 
was  instinctively  conscious  of  his  own  existence, 
he  was  experimentally  conscious  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  complicated  world  outside  of  him. 
But  it  was  to  him  rather  a  depressing  than  an 
ennobling  thought,  that  he  was  one  of  a  class, 
1^  fettered  by  the  same  disabilities,  the  same 
weaknesses,  as  millions  of  similar  objects.  Per- 
haps it  was  a  wholesome  humiliation,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  humiliating.  On  the  one 
hand  he  was  conscious  of  the  vast  power  of 
imagination,  the  power  of  standing,  as  it  were, 
side  by  side  with  God  upon  the  rampart  of 
heaven,  and  surveying  the  whole  scheme  of 
created  things.  Yet  on  the  other  hand  there 
fell  the  sense  of  a  baffling  and  miserable  im- 
potence, a  despairing  knowledge  that  one's 
consciousness  of  the  right  to  live,  and  to  live 
happily,  was  conditioned  by  one's  utter  frailty, 
the  sense  that  one  was  surrounded  by  a  thou- 
sand dangers,  any  one  of  which  might  at  any 
moment  deprive  one  of  the  only  thing  of  which 
one  was  sure.  How,  and  by  what  subtle  pro- 
cess of  faith  and  imagination,  could  the  two 
thoughts  be  reconciled  ? 

The  best  that  Hugh  could  make  of  the  ardent 


Individuality  163 

love  of  life  and  joy  which  inspired  him,  was  the 
belief  that  it  was  implanted  in  man,  that  he 
might  have,  for  some  inscrutable  reason,  a  mo- 
tive for  experiencing,  and  for  desiring  to  con- 
tinue to  experience,  the  strange  discipline  of 
the  world.  If  men  did  not  love  life  and  ease 
so  intensely,  at  the  first  discouragement,  at  the 
first  touch  of  pain,  they  would  languidly  and 
despairingly  cease  to  be.  Hugh  seemed  to  dis- 
cern that  men  were  put  into  the  world  that 
they  might  apprehend  something  that  it  was 
worth  their  while  to  apprehend  ;  that  for  some 
reason  which  he  had  no  means  of  divining,  life 
could  not  be  a  wholly  easy  or  pleasurable 
thing ;  but  that  in  order  to  inspire  men  to  bear 
pain  and  unhappiness,  they  were  permeated 
with  an  intense  desire  to  continue  to  live,  and 
to  regain  some  measure  of  contentment,  if  that 
contentment  were  for  a  time  forfeited.  Of 
course  there  were  many  things  which  that  did 
not  explain,  but  it  was  a  working  theory  that 
seemed  to  contain  a  large  element  of  truth. 
Sometimes  a  technically  religious  person  would 
say  that  the  world  was  created  for  the  glory  of 
God,  a  phrase  which  filled  Hugh  with  a  sense 
of  bewildered  disgust.  It  either  implied  that 
God  demanded  recognition,  or  that  it  was  all 
done  in  a  species  of  intolerable  pride  of  heart, 
as   a    mere    exhibition    of   power.     That   God 


/ 


\ 


1 64  Beside  Still  Waters 

should  yield  to  a  desire  for  display  seemed  to 
Hugh  entirely  inconsistent  with  a  belief  in  His 
awful  supremacy. 

It  seemed  to  him  rather  that  God  must  have 
abundant  cause  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  world 
as  it  was,  but  that  at  the  same  time  He  must 
have  some  overpoweringly  just  reason  for  ac- 
quiescing for  a  time  in  its  imperfection.  How 
else  could  one  pray,  or  aspire,  or  hope  at  all  ? 

But  the  sight  of  human  beings,  such  as  Hugh 
had  before  his  eyes  that  day,  filled  him  with 
perplexity.  One  was  only  possessed  by  an  in- 
tense desire  that  they  might  be  different  from 
what  they  were.  Hugh  indeed  knew  that  he 
himself  had  sore  need  to  be  different  from  what 
he  was.  But  the  qualities  that  lay  behind  the 
motions  and  speech  of  these  lads — inconsider- 
ateness,  indifference  to  others,  vanity,  gross- 
/^^  ,  ness — were  the  things  that  he  had  always  been 
endeavouring  to  suppress  and  eradicate  in  him- 
self; they  were  the  things  that  were  detested 
by  poets,  saints,  and  all  chivalrous  and  generous 
souls. 

Sometimes  indeed  one  was  confronted,  in 
the  world  of  men,  by  a  perfectly  sincere,  noble, 
quiet,  gentle,  loving  personality  ;  and  then  one 
perceived,  as  in  a  gracious  portrait,  what  hu- 
manity could  hope  to  aspire  to.  But  on  the 
other  hand  Hugh  had  seen,   in  the  pages  of  a 


The  Average  165 

periodical,  an  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  typical  hu- 
man face,  by  photographing  a  number  of  indi- 
viduals upon  the  same  plate  ;  and  what  a  blurred, 
dim,  uncomfortable  personality  seemed  to  peer 
forth  !  To  worship  humanity  seemed  to  Hugh 
like  tryingto  worship  that  concentrated  average ; 
and  he  had  little  hope  that,  if  an  absolutely 
average  man  were  constructed,  every  sin- 
gle living  individual  contributing  his  character- 
istics to  the  result,  the  result  would  be  edifying, 
encouraging,  or  inspiring.  Hugh  feared  that 
the  type  would  but  sink  the  most  tolerant 
philosopher  in  a  sense  of  irreclaimable  depres- 
sion. And  yet  if,  guided  by  prejudice  and  prefer- 
ence, one  made  up  a  figure  that  one  could  wholly 
admire,  how  untrue  to  nature  it  would  be, 
how  different  from  the  figure  that  other  human 
beings  would  consent  to  admire. 

The  problem  was  insoluble ;  the  only  way 
was  to  set  one's  self  courageously  at  one's  own 
little  corner  of  the  gigantic  scheme,  to  attack 
it  as  faithfully  as  one  could,  by  humble  aspi- 
rations, quiet  ministries,  and  tender-hearted 
sympathy ;  to  take  as  simply  as  possible  what- 
ever message  of  beauty  and  hope  fell  to  one's 
share ;  not  to  be  absorbed  in  one's  own  dreams 
and  imaginings,  but  to  interpret  faithfully 
every  syllable  of  the  great  Gospel;  and,  above 
all,  to    remember   that    work  was    inevitable, 


1 66  Beside  Still  Waters 

necessary,  and  even  beautiful ;  but  that  it  only 
had  the  noble  quality  when  it  was  undertaken 
for  the  love  of  others,  and  not  for  love  of 
one's  self. 


XVII 

The  return  of  the  sweet  spring  days,  with 
the  balmy  breath  of  warm  winds,  soft  sunshine 
on  the  pastures,  the  songs  of  contented  birds  in 
thicket  and  holt,  brought  to  Hugh  an  astonish- 
ing richness  of  sensation,  a  waft  of  joy  that 
was  not  yet  light-hearted,  joy  that  was  on  the 
one  hand  touched  with  a  fine  rapture,  yet  on 
the  other  hand  overshadowed  by  a  wistful 
melancholy.  The  frame,  braced  by  wintry 
cold,  revelled  in  the  outburst  of  warmth,  of 
light,  of  life  ;  and  yet  the  very  luxuriousness 
of  the  sensation  brought  with  it  a  languor  and 
a  weariness  that  was  akin  rather  to  death  than 
to  life.  He  rode  alone  far  into  the  shining 
countryside,  and  found,  in  the  middle  of  wide 
fields  with  softly  swelling  outlines,  where  the 
dry  ploughlands  were  dappled  with  faint  fawn- 
coloured  tints,  a  little  wood,  in  the  centre  of 
which  was  a  reed-fringed  pool.  The  new 
rushes  were  beginning  to  fringe  the  edges  of 
the  tiny  lake,  but  the  winter  sedge  stood 
pale  and  sere,  and  filled  the  air  with  a  dry 
i67 


1 68  Beside  Still  Waters 

rustling.  The  water  was  as  clear  as  a  trans- 
lucent gem,  and  Hugh  saw  that  life  was  at 
work  on  the  floor  of  the  pool,  sending  up 
rich  tresses  of  green-haired  water-weed.  The 
copse  was  green  under  foot,  full  of  fresh, 
uncrumpling  leaves.  He  sat  down  beside  the 
pool ;  the  silence  of  the  wide  fields  was 
broken  only  by  the  faint  rustling  of  sedge 
and  tree,  and  the  piping  of  a  bird,  hid  in  some 
darkling  bush  hard  by.  Never  had  Hugh 
been  more  conscious  of  the  general  outburst 
of  life  all  about  him,  and  yet  never  more  aware 
of  his  isolation  from  it  all.  His  body  seemed 
to  belong  to  it  all,  swayed  and  governed  by 
the  same  laws  that  prompted  their  gentle 
motions  to  tree  and  herb  ;  but  his  soul  seemed 
to  him  to-day  like  a  bright  creature  caught  in 
the  meshes  of  a  net,  beating  its  wings  in  vain 
against  the  constraining  threads.  From  what 
other  free  and  spacious  country  was  it  exiled  ? 
What  other  place  did  it  turn  to  with  desire  and 
love  ?  It  seemed  to  him  to-day  that  he  was  a 
captive  in  a  strange  land,  remembering  some 
distant  home,  some  heavenly  Zion,  even  in  his 
mirth.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  memory  of 
some  gracious  place  dwelt  in  his  mind,  separated 
only  from  his  earthly  memory  by  a  thin  yet 
impenetrable  veil.  His  spirit  held  out  listless 
hands  of  entreaty  to  some  unseen  power,  desir- 


Spring  169 

ing  he  knew  not  what.  To-day  on  earth 
the  desire  of  all  created  things  seemed  to  be 
directed  to  each  other.  The  tiny  creeping 
sprays  of  delicate  plants  that  carpeted  the 
wood  seemed  to  interlace  with  one  another  in 
tender  embraces.  In  loneliness  they  had  slept 
beneath  the  dark  ground,  and  now  that  they  had 
risen  to  the  light,  they  seemed  to  thrill  with 
joy  to  find  themselves  alone  no  longer.  He 
saw  in  the  leafless  branches  of  a  tree  near  him 
two  doves,  with  white  rings  upon  their  necks, 
that  turned  to  each  other  with  looks  of  desire 
and  love.  Was  it  for  some  kindred  spirit, 
for  the  sweet  consent  of  some  desirous  heart 
that  Hugh  hankered?  No!  it  was  not  that! 
It  was  rather  for  some  unimagined  freedom, 
some  perfect  tranquillity  that  he  yearned.  It 
was  like  the  desire  of  the  stranded  boat  for 
the  motion  and  dip  of  the  blue  sea-billows.  He 
would  have  hoisted  the  sail  of  his  thought, 
have  left  the  world  behind,  steering  out  across 
the  hissing,  leaping  seas,  till  he  should  see  at 
last  the  shadowy  summits,  the  green  coves  of 
some  remote  land,  draw  near  across  the  azure 
sea-line.  To-day  the  fretful  and  poisonous 
ambitions  of  the  world  seemed  intolerable  to 
him.  As  the  dweller  in  wide  fields  sees  the 
smoke  of  the  distant  town  rise  in  a  shadowy 
arc  upon  the  horizon,  and  thinks  with  pity  of  the 


170  Beside  Still  Waters 

toilers  there  in  the  hot  streets,  so  Hugh  thought 
of  the  intricate  movement  of  life  as  of  a  thing 
that  was  both  remote  and  insupportable.  That 
world  where  one  jostled  and  strove,  where  one 
made  so  many  unwilling  mistakes,  where  one 
laboured  so  unprofitably,  was  it  not,  after  all, 
^an  ugly  place?  What  seemed  so  strange  to 
him  was  that  one  should  be  set  so  unerringly 
in  the  middle  of  it,  while  at  the  same  time  one 
was  given  the  sense  of  its  unreality,  its  dis- 
tastefulness.  So  marvellously  was  one  made 
that  one  sickened  at  its  contact,  and  yet,  if  one 
separated  one's  self  from  it,  one  drooped  and 
languished  in  a  morbid  gloom.  The  burden  of 
the  flesh  !  The  frailty  of  the  spirit !  The  two 
seemed  irreconcilable,  and  yet  one  endured 
them  both.  The  world  so  full  of  beauty  and 
joy,  and  yet  the  one  gift  withheld  that  would 
make  one  content. 

And  yet  it  was  undeniable  tha,t  the  very 
sadness  that  he  felt  had  a  sweet  fragrance 
about  it.  It  was  not  the  sadness  of  despair, 
but  of  hope  unfulfilled.  The  soul  clasped 
hands  with  the  unknown,  with  tears  of  joy,  and 
leaned  out  of  the  world  as  from  a  casement, 
on  perilous  seas.  Indeed  the  very  wealth  of 
loveliness  on  every  hand,  and  the  mysterious 
yearning  to  take  hold  of  it,  to  make  it  one's 
own,  to  draw  it  into  the  spirit,  the  hope  that 


Wonder  171 

seemed  at  once  so  possible  and  yet  so  baffling 
gave  the  key  of  the  mystery.  There  was  a 
beauty,  there  was  a  truth  that  was  waiting  for 
one,  and  the  sweetness  here  was  a  type  of  the 
unseen.  It  was  only  the  narrow  soul  that 
grudged  if  it  was  not  satisfied.  The  brave 
heart  went  quietly  and  simply  about  its  task, 
welcoming  every  delicate  sight,  every  whisper 
of  soft  airs,  every  touch  of  loving  hands,  every 
glance  of  gentle  eyes,  rejoicing  in  the  mystery 
of  it  all ;  thanking  the  Lord  of  life  for  the 
speechless  wonder  o!f  it,  and  even  daring  to 
thank  Him  that  the  end  was  not  yet ;  and  that 
the  bird  must  still  speed  onwards  to  the  home 
of  its  heart,  dipping  its  feet  in  the  crest  of  the 
wandering  wave,  till  the  land,  whither  it  was 
bound,  should  rise  like  a  soft  shadow  over  the 
horizon  ;  till  the  shadow  became  a  shape,  and 
at  last  the  tall  cliffs,  with  the  green  downs 
above,  the  glittering  plain,  the  sombre  forest, 
loomed  out  above  one,  just  beyond  where  the 
waves  whitened  on  the  loud  sea-beaches,  and 
the  sound  of  the  breakers  came  harmoniously 
over  the  waste  of  waters,  like  the  soft  tolling 
of  a  muffled  bell. 


XVIII 

Up  to  this  time  it  may  be  said  that  Hugh 
had  never  felt  the  pressure  of  sordid  anxieties, 
or  experienced  any  sorrows  but  the  sorrows  of 
pure  emotion.  But  now  all  at  once  there  fell 
on  him  a  series  of  heavy  afflictions.  His  fatjier 
died  after  a  very  short  illness;  so  little  had  a 
fatal  result  been  expected,  that  Hugh  only 
reached  home  after  his  death.  It  happened 
that  the  last  sight  he  had  had  of  his  father  had 
been  one  of  peculiar  brightness.  He  had  been 
staying  at  home,  and,  on  the  morning  of  his 
return  to  Cambridge,  had  gone  into  the  study 
for  a  parting  talk.  He  had  found  his  father  in 
a  mood  not  common  with  him,  but  which  was 
i|  growing  commoner  as  he  grew  older,  of  serene 
\t  cheerfulness.  He  had  talked  to  Hugh  very 
f  eagerly  about  a  little  book  of  poems  that  Hugh 
had  lately  published.  Hugh  had  hardly  men- 
tioned it  to  his  father  beforehand,  but  he  had 
dedicated  the  book  to  him,  though  he  imagined 
that  his  father  must  consider  poetry  a  dilettante 
kind  of  occupation.  He  was  amazed  to  find, 
172 


His  Father's  Death  173 

when  he  discussed  the  book  with  his  father, 
that  he  was  met  with  so  vivid  and  personal  a 
sympathy,  and  he  discerned  that  the  writing 
of  poetry  must  have  been  a  preoccupation  of 
his  father's  in  early  days,  one  of  those  delicate 
ambitions  on  which  he  had  sharply  turned  the 
key.  His  mother  and  sister  were  away  for 
the  day,  so  that  when  it  was  time  to  go,  and 
the  carriage  was  announced,  there  was  no  one 
but  his  father  in  the  house.  He  had,  as  his 
custom  was,  laid  his  hand  on  his  son's  head, 
and  blessed  him  with  a  deep  emotion,  adding 
a  few  words  of  love  and  confidence  that  had 
filled  Hugh's  eyes  with  tears;  and  his  father 
had  then  put  his  arm  through  his  son's,  walked 
to  the  door  with  him,  and  had  stood  there  in 
the  bright  morning,  with  his  grey  hair  stirred 
by  the  wind,  waving  his  hand  till  the  carriage 
had  turned  the  corner  of  the  shrubbery. 

Hugh  often  suffered  from  a  certain  appre- 
hensiveness  of  mind  on  leaving  home ;  he  had 
sometimes  wondered,  as  he  said  farewell  to  the 
group,  whether  he  would  see  them  thus  again. 
But  that  morning  it  had  never  occurred  to  him 
that  there  was  any  such  possibility  in  store  for 
him ;  so  that  now,  when  he  had  returned  to  the 
darkened  house,  and  presently  saw  that  pale, 
still  form,  with  a  quiet  smile  on  the  face,  as 
of  one  satisfied  beyond   his  dearest  wish,  he 


174  Beside  Still  Waters 

plunged  into  a  depth  of  ineffectual  sorrow  such 
as  he  had  never  known  before.  The  one 
thought  that  sustained  him  was  that  he  and 
his  father  had  loved,  understood,  and  trusted 
each  other.  It  was  a  horror  to  Hugh  to  think 
what  his  feelings  might  have  been  in  the  old 
days,  if  his  father  had  died  when  his  own  pre- 
dominant emotion  had  been  a  respectful  fear 
of  him. 

It  seemed  impossible  to  believe  that  all  the 
activities  of  that  long  life  were  over ;  and  as 
Hugh  went  through  his  father's  papers,  with 
incessant  little  heart-broken  griefs  at  the  ar- 
rangements and  precisions  that  had  stood  for 
so  much  devoted  faithfulness  and  loyal  respon- 
sibility, it  seemed  to  him  as  though  the  door 
must  open,  and  the  well-known  figure,  with  the 
smile  that  Hugh  knew  so  well,  stand  before 
him. 

The  first  disaster  that  was  revealed  to  him 
was  the  smallness  of  his  father's  fortune;  his 
father,  though  often  talking  about  business  to 
his  son,  had  a  curious  reticence  about  money 
affairs,  and  had  never  prepared  him  for  the 
scantiness  of  the  provision  that  he  had  accumu- 
lated. Hugh  saw  at  once  that  the  utmost  care 
would  have  for  the  future  to  be  exercised,  and 
that  their  whole  scale  of  life  must  be  altered. 
The   fact   was    that    his    father's   professional 


Changes  175 

income  had  been  ample,  and  that  he  had  had 
a  strong  dislike  of  saving  money  from  ecclesi- 
astical sources.  The  home  must  evidently  be 
broken  up  at  once,  and  a  small  house  taken  for 
his  mother.  But  fortunately  both  his  mother 
and  sister  were  entirely  undismayed  by  this ; 
their  tastes  were  simple  enough;  but  Hugh 
saw  that  he  himself  would  have  to  contribute 
to  their  assistance.  With  his  own  small  for- 
tune, his  literary  work,  and  a  little  academical 
work  that  he  was  doing,  he  had  been  able 
to  live  comfortably  enough  without  taking 
thought;  but  now  he  saw  that  all  this  must  be 
curtailed.  He  had  an  intense  dislike  of  think- 
ing about  money  ;  and  he  therefore  determined 
that  there  should  be  no  small  economies  on  his 
part,  but  that  he  would  simply,  if  necessary, 
alter  his  easy  scale  of  living. 

It  was  a  terrible  process  disestablishing  the 
old  home  ;  thej^jile  of  furniture  and  books,  the 
displacing  of  the  old  pictures,  seemed  to  tear 
and  rend  all  sorts  of  delicate  fibres ;  but  at  last 
the  house  was  dismantled,  and  it  became  a  bit- 
ter sort  of  joy  to  leave  a  place  that  had  be- 
come like  a  sad  skeleton  of  one  that  he  had 
loved.  The  trees,  the  flowers,  the  church- 
tower  over  the  elms — as  they  drove  away  on 
that  last  morning,  these  seemed  to  regard  him 
with  mournful  and   hollow  eyes ;  the  parting 


176  Beside  Still  Waters 

was  indeed  so  intensely  sad,  that  Hugh  experi- 
enced a  grim  relief  in  completing  it  and  there 
fell  on  him  a  deep  dreariness  of  spirit,  which 
seemed  at  last  to  benumb  him,  until  he  felt  that 
he  could  no  longer  care  for  anything. 

He  returned  at  last  to  Cambridge;  and  now 
illness  fell  upori  him  for  the  sec  pud  time  in  his 
life.  Not  a  definite  illness,  but  a  lingering  ma- 
laise, which  seemed  to  bereave  him  of  all  spring 
and  energy.  He  was  told  that  he  must  not 
work,  must  spend  his  time  in  the  open  air,  must 
be  careful  in  matters  of  food  and  sleep.  He 
lived  indeed  for  some  months  the  life  of  an  in- 
valid. The  restrictions  fretted  him  intolerably; 
but  he  found  that  every  carelessness  brought 
its  swift  revenge.  He  had  previously  felt  little 
or  no  sympathy  with  invalids ;  he  had  disliked 
the  signs  of  illness  in  others,  the  languor,  the" 
sunken  eye,  the  fretfulness  of  fever,  and  now  he 
had  to  bear  them  himself.  He  had  always  felt, 
half  unconsciously,  that  illness  was  a  fancitul 
thing,  and  might  be  avoided  by  a  kind  of  cheer- 
ful effort.  But  now  he  had  to  go  through  the 
experience  of  feebleness  and  peevish  inactivity. 
He  used  sometimes,  out  of  pure  irritabi,Hty,  to 
resume  his  work  ;  but  he  had  no  grip  or  vigour; 
his  conceptions  were  languid,  his  technical  re- 
sources were  dulled ;  and  then  came  strange 
and  unmanning  dizziness,  the  horrible  feeling. 


Illness  177 

in  the  middle  of  a  cheerful  company,  that  one 
is  hardly  accountable  for  one's  actions,  when 
the  only  escape  seems  to  be  to  hold  on  with  all 
one's  might  to  the  slenderest  thread  of  conven- 
tional thought.  The  difficulty  was  to  know 
how  to  fill  the  time.  There  was  no  relish  in 
company,  and  yet  a  hatred  of  solitude:  he  used 
to  moon  about,  sit  in  the  garden,  take  irresolute 
walks;  he  read  novels,  and  found  them  unutter- 
ably dreary.  Music  was  the  only  thing  that  lifted 
him  out  of  his  causeless  depression,  and  gave 
back  a  little  zest  to  life;  but  the  fear  that  was 
almost  intolerable  was  the  possibility  that  he 
would  never  emerge  out  of  this  wretchedness. 
Day  after  day  passed,  and  no  change  was 
apparent  ;  till  just  when  he  was  on  the  verge 
of  despair,  when  the  darkest  visions  began  to 
haunt  his  mind,  the  cloud  began  to  lift.  He 
found  that  he  could  work  a  little,  though  the 
smallest  excess  was  still  punished  by  days  of 
feebleness.  But,  holding  to  this  thread  of  hope, 
Hugh  climbed  slowly  out  of  the  darkness;  and 
it  was  a  day  to  him  of  deep  and  abiding  grati- 
tude when,  after  a  long  Swiss  holiday,  in  which 
his  bodily  activity  had  come  back  to  him  with 
an  intensity  of  pleasure,  Hugh  realised  that  he 
was  again  in  his  ordinary  health. 

But  he  had  at  this  time  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment.    Just  before  his  father's  death  he  had 


178  Beside  Still  Waters 

finished  preparing  a  little  work  for  publication, 
.a.  set.  of  essays  on  a  variety  of  subjects,  to 
which  he  had  devoted  much  care  and  thought. 
To  his  deep  vexation  it  met  with  a  very  con- 
temptuous reception.  Its  errors  were  merci- 
lessly criticised,  and  it  was  proclaimed  to  be  the 
work  of  a  sickly  sentimental  dilettante.  Hugh 
found  it  hard  to  believe  in  the  verdict ;  but  his 
conviction  was  established  by  the  opinion  of 
one  of  his  old  friends  who,  as  kindly  as  possi- 
ble, pointed  out  that  the  book  was  both  thin 
and  egotistical.  Hugh  felt  as  if  he  could  never 
write  again,  and  as  if  the  chief  occupation  of 
his  life  would  be  gone ;  but  with  renewed 
health  his  confidence  returned,  and  in  a  few 
weeks  he  was  able  to  look  the  situation  in  the 
face.  The  reception  of  the  book  had  brought 
home  to  him  the  direction  in  which  he  was 
drifting.  He  saw  that  a  certain  toughness  and 
hardness  of  fibre  had  been  wanting.  He  saw 
that  he  had  tried  to  fill  a  book  up  out  of  his 
own  mind,  in  a  leisurely  and  trifling  mood.  He 
had  not  attempted  to  grasp  his  subjects,  but 
had  allowed  himself  to  put  down  loose  and 
half-hearted  impressions,  instead  of  trying  to 
see  into  the  essence  of  the  things  he  was 
describing. 

But,   his  illness  over,  he  was  astonished  to 
find  how  little  both  money  anxieties  and  the 


A  New  Home  179 

shattering  of  literary  hopes  distressed  him.  For 
the  first,  it  was  clear  that  his  motTier  and  sister 
could  live  with  an  adequate  degree  of  comfort 
and  dignity.  And  as  for  his  literary  hopes,  he 
realised  that  the  failure  had  been  a  real  revela- 
tion of  his  own  weakness ;  but  he  realised  too 
that  other  people  would  forget  about  the  book 
still  faster  than  he  himself,  and  that  no  previous 
failures  would  damn  a  further  work,  if  only  it 
possessed  the  true  qualities  of  art ;  and  indeed 
from  this  time  he  dated  a  real  increase  of  artistic 
faculty,  a  sense  of  constraining  vocation,  a  joy 
in  literary  labour,  which  soon,  like  a  sunrise, 
brightened  all  his  horizon ;  and  it  was  pleasant 
too,  though  Hugh  did  not  over-value  it,  to  find 
his  work  beginning  to  bring  him  a  definite 
though  slight  reputation,  and  a  position  among 
imaginative  critics. 

Moreover  his  new  home  began  to  have  a 
very  potent  charm  for  him.  His  mother  had 
settled  in  a  small  ancient  house  in  the  depths  of 
the  country.  They  had  very  few  neighbours. 
The  little  building  itself  was  full  of  charm,  the 
charm  of  mellow  beauty  and  old  human  owner, 
ship  ;  it  was  embosomed  among  trees,  and  had  a 
small  walled  garden,  rich  in  flowers  and  shade. 
He  had  been  there  but  a  few  weeks,  when  he 
realised  that  the  old  feeling  of  a  vague  friendli- 
ness  and    intimate   concern    with    nature   had 


i8o  Beside  Still  Waters 

come  back.  It  was  as  though  the  spirits, 
which  had  peopled  the  remembered  flowers  and 
trees  of  his  first  home,  had  flitted  with  them, 
and  had  taken  up  their  abode  in  this  other  gar- 
den. The  flowers  seemed  to  smile  at  him  with 
the  same  shy  mystery,  the  trees  to  surround  the 
house  like  a  troop  of  loyal  sentinels.  The  ab- 
sence of  the  constant  social  interruptions  that 
had  been  characteristic  of  the  Rectory  vva^s  an 
added  charm  ;  his  mother  and  sister,  too,  though 
heavily  overshadowed  by  grief,  found  the  place 
peaceful  and  congenial ;  and  the  best  joy  of  all 
was  the  sweet  and  fragrant  relation  that  sprung 
up  among  the  three.  They  were  like  the  sur- 
vivors of  a  wreck,  whose  former  familiarity 
had  been  converted  suddenly  into  a  deep  and 
emotional  loyalty,  by  the  sad  experiences 
through  which  they  had  passed  together.  The 
relations  had  before  been  affectionate,  but  in 
some  ways  superficial.  Hugh  to  his  surprise 
found  himself  daily  making  discoveries  about 
his  mother  and  sister,  through  the  close 
relationship  into  which  they  were  brought. 
Unsuspected  tastes  and  feelings  revealed  them- 
selves, and  he  began  to  be  aware  of  a  whole  host 
of  new  interests  that  sprang  up  between  them. 
Sometimes,  when  a  hedgerow  is  rooted  up,  one 
may  notice  how  a  whole  crop  of  unknown 
flowers,  whose  seeds  had  been  buried  deep  in 


The  New  Light  i8i 

the  soil,  suddenly  emerge  to  conceal  the  bare 
scarred  ditch.  Hugh  thought  to  himself  that 
the  experiences  through  which  they  had  passed 
had  had  this  effect  of  enlarging  and  extending 
sympathies  which  were  there  all  the  time,  and 
which  had  never  had  an  opportunity  of  reveal- 
ing themselves.  And  thus  out  of  sorrow  and 
wretchedness,  there  sprang  to  light  a  whole 
range  of  new  forces,  a  vision  of  new  possibilities. 
It  seemed  to  Hugh  that  he  was  like  a  man  who 
had  passed  by  night  through  an  unfamiliar 
country,  by  unknown  roads  ;  that  as  the  dark- 
ness had  begun  to  glimmer  to  dawn,  the  shape- 
less shadows  of  things  about  him  had  gradually 
taken  shape,  and  revealed  themselves  at  last  to 
be  but  the  quiet  trees  with  their  gentle  tapestry 
of  leaves,  leaning  over  his  way ;  and  what  had 
been  but  a  formless  horror,  became  revealed  as 
a  company  of  friendly  living  things  that  beck- 
oned comfortably  to  his  spirit,  and  grew  into 
purer  colour  as  the  dawn  began  to  break  from 
underground. 

A- .  /  ^i  ^' ■ 


XIX 


/ 


V 


Hugh  had  always  felt  that  he  had  very  little 
comprehension  of  the  feminine  temperament ; 
he  realised  to  the  full  how  much  more  generous, 
unselfish,  high-minded,  and  sympathetic  women 
were  than  men,  their  perceptions  of  personali- 
ties more  subtle,  their  intuitions  more  delicate  ; 
in  a  difficult  matter,  a  crisis  involving  the  rela- 
tions of  people,  when  it  was  hard  to  know  how 
to  act,  and  when,  in  dealing  with  the  situation, 
tact  and  judgment  were  required,  he  found  it  a 
good  rule  to  consult  a  woman  about  what  had 
happened,  and  a  man  about  what  would  hap- 
pen. Women  had  as  a  rule  a  finer  instinct  about 
characters  and  motives,  but  their  advice  about 
how  to  act  was  generally  too  vehement  and  rash ; 
a  woman  could  often  divine  the  complexities  of 
a  situation  better,  a  man  could  advise  one  better 
how  to  proceed.  But  what  he  could  seldom 
follow  was  the  intellectual  processes  of  women; 
they  intermingled  too  much  of  emotion  with 
their  logic  ;  they  made  bird-like,  darting  move- 
ments from  point  to  point,  instead  of  following 


Women  183 

the  track ;  they  tended  to  be  partisans.  They 
forgave  nothing  in  those  they  disliked  ;  they 
condoned  anything  in  those  they  loved.  Hugh 
lived  so  much  himself  in  the  intellectual  region, 
and  desired  so  constantly  a  certain  equable  and 
direct  quality  in  his  relations  with  others,  that 
he  seldom  felt  at  ease  in  his  relations  with  wo- 
men, except  with  those  who  could  give  him 
the  sort  of  sisterly  camaraderie  that  he  desired. 
Women  seemed  to  him  to  have,  as  a  rule,  a 
curious  desire  for  influence,  for  personal  power ; 
they  translated  everything  into  personal  values ; 
they  desired  to  dominate  situations,  to  have 
their  own  way  in  superficial  matters,  to  have 
secret  understandings.  They  acted,  he  thought, 
as  a  rule,  from  personal  and  emotional  motives  ; 
and  thus  Hugh,  who  above  all  things  desired  to 
live  by  instinct  rather  than  by  impulse,  found 
himself  fretted  and  entangled  in  a  fine  network 
of  shadowy  loyalties,  exacting  chivalries,  subtle 
diplomacies,  delicate  jealousies,  unaccountable 
irritabilities,  ifhe  endeavoured  to  form  a  friend- 
ship with  a  woman.  A  normal  man  U)ok,a 
friendship  Just  as  it  came,  exacted  neither  at- 
tendance nor  communication,  welcomed  oppor- 
tunities of  intercourse,  but  did  not  scheme  for 
them,  was  not  hurt  by  apparent  neglect,  de- 
manded no  effusiveness,  and  disliked  senti- 
ment.    Hugh,  as  he  grew  older,  did  not  desire 


i84  Beside  Still  Waters 

very  close  relationships  with  people ;  he  valued 
frankness  above  intimacy,  and  candour  above 
sympathy.  He  found  as  a  rule,  that  women 
gave  to^  much  sympathy,  and  the  result  was 

^  that  he  felt  himself  encouraged  to  be  egotisti- 
cal. He  used  to  think  that  when  he  spoke 
frankly  to  women,  they  tended  to  express  ad- 

^  miration  for  the  way  he  had  acted  or  thought ; 
and  if  he  met  that  by  saying  that  he  neither 
deserved  nor  wanted  praise,  he  received  fur- 
ther admiration  for  disinterestedness,  when  all 
\  that  he  desired  was  to  take  the  matter  out  of 
the  region  of  credit  altogether.  He  believed 
indeed  that  women  valued  the  pleasure  of 
making  an  impression,  of  exercising  influence, 
too  highly,  and  that  in  thi3  point  their  per- 
ception seemed  to  fail ;  they  did  not  under- 
stand that  a  man  acts  very  often  from  impersonal 
motives,  and  is  interested  in  the  doing  of  the 
(^^  thing  itself,  whatever  it  may  happen  to  be, 
rather  than  in  the  effect  that  his  action  may 
have  upon  other  people.  It  was  part  of  the 
high-mindedness  of  women  that  they  could  not 
understand  that  a  man  should  be  so  absorbed 
in  the  practical  execution  of  a  matter.  They 
looked  upon  men's  ambitions,  their  desire  to 
do  or  make  something — a  book,  a  picture,  a 
poem — as  a  sort  of  game  in  which  they  could  not 
believe  that  any  one  could  be  seriously  interest- 


The  Feminine  View 


:8s 


ed.  Hugh  indeed  seemed  to  divine  the  curious 
fact  that,  generally;  speaking,  men__and  women 
looked  upon  the  preoccupations  and  employ- 
ments of  the  opposite  sex  as  rather  cjiildish  ;  a 
man  would  be  immersed  in  practical  activities, 
in  business,  in  organisation,  in  education,  in 
communicating  definite  knowledge,  in  writing 
books,  in  attending  meetings — this  he  thought 
to  be  the  serious  and  real  business  of  the  world  ; 
and  he  was  inclined  to  look  upon  relationships 
with  other  people,  sentiment,  tender  affections, 
wistful  thoughts  of  others,  as  a  sort  of  fireside 
amusement  and  recreation. 

Women,  on  the  other  hand,  found  their  real 
life  injthese  things,  desired  to  please,  to  win  and 
retain  affection,  to  admire  and  to  be  admired, 
to  love  and  be  loved ;  and  they  tended  to  look 
upon  material  things — comfort,  wealth,  busi- 
ness, work,  art — as  essentially  secondary  things, 
which  had  of  course  a  certain  value,  but  which 
were  not  to  be  weighed  in  the  scale  with  emo- 
tional things.  There  were  naturally  many  ex- 
ceptions to  this  ;  th^rejw£r£L,hard,  business-like 
practical  women  ;  there  were  emotional,  tender- 
hearted, sensitive  men  ;  but  the  general  princi- 
ple held  good.  And  thus  it  was  that  men 
and  women  regarded  the  supreme  emotion  of 
Jove  from  such  different  points  of  view,  and 
failed  so  often  to  comprehend  the  way  in  which 


// 


1 86  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  opposite  sex  regarded  it ;  to  women  it  was 
but  the  natural  climax,  the  raising  and  height- 
ening of  their  habitual  mood  into  one  great 
momentous  passion ;  it  was  the  flow,er  of  life 
slowly  matured  into  bloom ;  to  men  ft  Was  more 
a  surprising  and  tremendous  experience,  an 
amazing  episode,  cutting  across  life  and  inter- 
rupting its  habitual  current,  contradicting  rather 
than  confirming  their  previous  experience. 

Hugh  was  himself  rather  on  the  feminine  side; 
though  he  had  a  strong  practical  turn,  and  could 
carry  through  a  matter  effectively  enough,  yet 
he  valued  delicate  and  sincere  emotions,  disin- 
terestedness, simplicity,  and  loyalty,  above  prac- 
tical activity  and  organisation  ;  the  result  of  this, 
he  supposed,  was  that  he  tended,  from  a  sense 
of  the  refreshment  of  contrast,  to  make  his  friends 
rather  among  men  than  among  women,  and  this 
was,  he  believed,  the  reason  why  he  had  never 
fallen  frankly  in  love,  because  he  could  to  a 
great  extent  supply  out  of  his  own  nature  the 
elements  which  as  a  rule  men  sought  among 
women  ;  and  because  the  complexity  and  sensi- 
tiveness of  his  own  temperament  took  refuge 
rather  in  tranquillity  and  straightforward  com- 
mon-sense. As  he  grew  older,  as  he  became 
absorbed  more  and  more  in  literary  work,  he 
tended,  he  thought,  to  draw  more  and  more 
away  from  human   relationships;  the  energy, 


Society  187 

the  interest,  that  had  formerly  gone  into  mak- 
ing new  relationships  now  began  to  run  in  a 
narrower  channel.  Whether  it  was  prudent  to 
yield  to  this  impulse  he  did  not  stop  to  inquire. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  many  of  his  friends  wasted 
a  great  deal  of  force  and  activity  from  semi- 
prudential  motives.  As  his  life  became  more 
solitary,  an  old  friend  once  took  him  to  task  on 
this  point.  He  said  that  it  was  all  very  well 
for  a  time,  but  that  Hugh  would  find  his  interest 
in  his  work  flag,  and  that  there  would  be  no- 
thing to  fill  the  gap.  He  advised  him,  at  the  cost 
of  some  inconvenience,  to  cultivate  relations  | 
with  a  wider  circle,  to  go  to  social  gatherings,  ' 
to  make  acquaintances.  He  knew,  he  said,  that 
Hugh  would  possibly  find  it  rather  tiresome, 
but  it  was  of  the  nature  of  an  investment  which 
might  some  day  prove  of  value. 

Hugh  replied  that  he  thought  that  this  was 
living^.life  too  much  on  the  principle  of  the 
White  Knight  in  Through  the  Loo  king-Glass. 
The  White  Knight  kept  a  mouse-trap  slung  to 
his  saddle :  when  it  was  objected  that  he  would  \y" 
not  be  likely  to  find  mice  on  the  back  of  his 
horse,  he  replied  that  perhaps  it  was  not  likely, 
but  that  if  they  were  there,  he  did  not  choose  to 
have  them  running  about.  Hugh  confessed  that 
he  did  find  ordinary  society  tiresome ;  but  to 
persist  in  frequenting  it,  on  the  chance  that  some 


1 88  Beside  Still  Waters 

day  it  would  turn  out  to  be  a  method  of  filling 
up  vacant  hours,  seemed  to  him  to  be  providing 
against  an  unlikely  contingency,  and  indeed  an 
ugly  and  commercial  business.  He  did  not  think 
it  probable  that  he  would  lose  interest  in  his 
work,  and  he  thought  it  better  to  devote  him- 
self to  it  while  it  interested  him.  If  the  time 
ever  came  when  he  needed  a  new  set  of  relation- 
ships, he  thought  he  could  trust  himself  to  form 
them  ;  and  if  he  did  not  desire  to  form  them, 
well,  to  be  bored  was  bad  enough,  but  it  was 
1  better  on  the  whole  to  be  passively  rather  than 
I  actively  bored. 

'  But  Hugh's  theory  in  reality  went  deeper  than 
that.  He  had  a  strong  belief,  which  grew  in 
intensity  with  age,  that  the  only  chance  of  realis- 
ing one's  true  life  was  to  do  sojnething  that  in- 
terested one  with  all  one's  might.  He  did  not 
believe  that  what  was  done  purely  from  a  sense 
v/'of  duty,  unless  it  pleased  and  satisfied  some  part 
of  one's  nature,  was  ever  effective  or  even  useful. 
It  was  not  well  done,  and  it  was  neglected  on 
any  excuse.  His  pilgrimage  through  the  world 
presented  itself  to  Hugh  in  the  light  of  a  jour- 
ney through  hilly  country.  The  ridge  that  rose 
in  front  of  one  concealed  a  definite  type  of 
scenery ;  that  scenery  was  there ;  there  were 
indeed  a  hundred  possibilities  about  it  and  the 
imagination  might  amuse  itself  by  forecasting 


Society  189 

what  it  was  to  be  like.  But  it  seemed  to  Hugh 
that  one  wasted  time  in  these  forecasts :  and 
that  it  was  better  to  wait  and  see  what  it  actually 
was,  and  then  to  enjoy  it  as  vigorously  as  one 
could.  To  spend  one's  time  in  fantastic  specu- 
lation as  to  what  was  corning,  was  to  waste 
vigour  and  thought,  which  were  better  employed 
in  observing  and  interpreting  what  was  around 
one. 

And  so  Hugh  resolved  that  his  relations 
with  others  should  be  of  this  kind ;  that  he 
would  not  seek  restlessly  for  particular  kinds  of 
friendships  ;  but  that  he  would  accept  the  circle 
that  he  found,  the  persons  with  whom  relatione 
were  inevitable ;  and  that  he  would  make  the 
most  of  what  he  found.  Choice  and  selection ! 
How  little  one  really  employed  them !  the 
world  streamed  past  one,  an  unsuspected,  un- 
looked-for friend  would  suddenly  emerge  from 
the  throng,  and  one  would  find  one's  self  jour- 
neying shoulder  to  shoulder  for  a  space.  Hugh 
thought  indeed  sometimes  that  one  made  no 
friendships  at  all  of  one's  self :  but  that  God  sent 
the  influences  of  which  one  had  need,  at  the 
very  time  at  which  one  needed  them,  and 
then  silently  and  tenderly  withdrew  them 
again  for  a  time,  when  they  had  done  their 
work  for  the  soul.  One  received  much 
and   perhaps,  however  unconsciously,  however 


// 


190  Beside  Still  Waters 

lightly,  one  gave  something  of  one's   own    as 
well. 

But  all  Hugh's  relations  with  others  were 
overshadowed  by  the  great  doubt,  which  was 
perhaps  the  heaviest  burden  he  had  to  carry, 
as  to  \yhether  one's  individuality  endured. 
The  thought  that  it  might  not  survive  death, 
made  him  shrink  from  establishing  a  close- 
ness of  emotional  dependence  on  another,  the 
loss  of  which  would  be  intolerable.  The  nat- 
ural flame  of  the  heart  seemed  quenched  and 
baffled  by  that  cold  thought.  It  was  the  same 
instinct  that  made  him,  as  a  boy,  refuse  the 
gift  of  a  dog,  when  a  pet  collie,  that  had  been 
his  own,  had  been  killed  by  an  accident.  The 
pain  of  the  loss  had  seemed  so  acute,  so  irre- 
parable, that  he  preferred  to  live  uncomforted 
rather  than  iPace  such  another  parting ;  and 
there  seemed,  too,  a  kind  of  treachery  in 
replacing  love.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  individ- 
uality did  endure,  the  best  of  all  relationships 
seemed  to  Hugh  a  frank  and  sincere  compan- 
ionship, such  as  may  arise  between  two  wav- 
farers  whose  road  lies  together  for  a  little,  and 
who  talk  easily  and  familiarly  as  they  walk  in 
the  clear  light  of  the  dawn.  Hugh  felt  that 
there  was  an  abundance  of  fellow-pilgrims,  men 
and  women  alike,  to  consort  with,  to  admire, 
to  love;  this  affability  and  accessibility  made 


Frank  Relations  191 

it  always  easy  for  Hugh  to  enter  into  close 
relationship  with  others.  He  had  little  desire 
to  guard  his  heart ;  and  the  sacred  intimacy, 
the  sharing  of  secret  thoughts  and  hopes, 
which  men  as  a  rule  give  but  to  a  few,  Hugh 
was  perhaps  too  ready  to  give  to  all.  What 
he  lost  in  depth  and  intensity  he  perhaps 
gained  in  breadth.  But  he  also  became  aware 
that  he  had  a  certain  coldness  of  temperament. 
(  Many  were  dear  to  him,  but  none  essential. 
There  was  no  jealousy  about  his  relations  with 
others.  He  never  demanded  of  a  friend  that 
he  should  give  him  a  special  or  peculiar  regard. 
His  frankness  was  indeed  sometimes  misunder- 
stood, and  people  occasionally  supposed  that 
they  had  evoked  a  nearness  of  feeling,  an  im- 
passioned quality,  which  was  not  really  there. 
"You  give  away  your  heart  in  hafidfuls,"  said 
a  friend  to  him  once  in  a  paroxysm  of  anger, 
fancying  himself  neglected  ;  and  Hugh  felt  that 
it  was  both  just  and  unjust.  He  had  never,  he 
thought,  given  his  heart  away  at  all,  except  as 
a  boy  to  his  chosen  friend.  But  he  gave  a 
smiling  and  tender  affection  very  easily  to  all 
who  seemed  to  desire  it.  He  knew  indeed 
that  from  that  first  experience  something  of 
the  sweet  mystery  of  faithful  devotion  ;  but  now 
he  could  only  idealise,  he  could  not  idolise. 
The  world  was  full  of  friendly,  gracious,  inter- 


192  Beside  Still  Waters 

esting  people.  Circumstance  spun  one  to  and 
fro  among  the  groups  and  companies ;  how 
could  one  give  a  unique  regard,  when  there 
were  so  many  that  claimed  allegiance  and 
admiration?  He  saw  others  flit  from  passion 
to  passion,  from  friendship  to  friendship — 
Hugh's  aim  was  rather  %p  be  the  same,  to  be 
loyal  and  true,,  to.  be  able  to  tak?  JJg^  a  sus- 
pended friendship  where  he  had  laid  it  down  ; 
the  most  shameful  thing  in  the  world  seemed 
to  him  the  ebbing  away  of  vitality  out  of  a 
relationship ;  and  therefore  he  would  not  give 
pledges  which  he  might  be  unable  to  redeem. 
If  the  conscious  soul  survived  mortal  death, 
then  perhaps  these  limitations  of  time  and 
space,  which  suspended  friendships,  would 
exist  no  longer,  and  he  could  wait  for  that 
with  a  quiet  hopefulness.  But  if  it  all  passed 
away,  and  was  as  though  it  had  never  been,  if 
life  was  but  a  leaping  flame,  a  ripple  on  the 
stream,  then  how  could  one  have  the  heart  to 
tie  indissoluble  links? 

Hugh  half  understood  that  the  weakjness  of 
his  case  was  that  he  could  argue  about  it  at  all. 
Others  went  blindly  and  ardently  into  loves 
and  friendships,  because  an  irresistible  im- 
pulse carried  them  away — with  Hugh  the  im- 
pulse was  not  irresistible.  Meanwhile  he  would 
give  what  he  could,  offer  rather  than   claim  ; 


Coldness  193 

he  would  reject  no  proffer  of  friendship,  but 
he  would  not,  or  perhaps  he  could  not,  fet- 
ter himself  with  heavy  chains  of  emotion.  But 
even  so  he  was  aware  that  this  temperance,  this 
balance  of  nature,  was  not  a  wholly  beautiful 
or  desirable  thing. 

The  perception  of  this  came  home  to  Hugh 
with  peculiar   force  on   a  bright   fresh  day  of 
early  spring,  when  he  walked  with  a  friend  in 
the  broad  green  fields  beside  the  Cam.     They    V_^  .  A  Pn .  r*  ( 
had  been  strolling  first  in  the  coHege  gardens,  \.       V 

where  the  snowdrops  were  pushing  up,  some  of  Ok  ^  i-  <>n.4 
them  bearing  on  their  heads  the  crust  of  earth  >     — ' 

that  had  sheltered  them  ;  crocuses  rose  in  the 
borders,  like  little  bursts  of  flame.  A  thrush 
was  singing  on  a  high  bough,  and  seemed  to 
be  telling,  in  an  eager  mystery,  the  very  hopes 
and  dreams  of  Hugh's  heart.  He  said  some- 
thing that  implied  as  much  to  his  friend,  who 
replied  that  he  did  not  understand  that. 

This  friend  of  Hugh's  was  much  younger  than 
himself,  of  a  fastidious  and  somewhat  secluded 
nature,  but  possessing  for  Hugh  the  deep  at- 
traction of  a  peculiar  type  of  character.  He  had 
great  critical  and  literary  gifts,  and  seemed  to 
Hugh  to  bring  to  the  judgment  of  artistic  work 
an  extraordinarily  clear  and  fine  criterion  of 
values.  But  beside  this,  he  seemed  to  Hugh 
to  have  the  power  of  entering  into  a  very  close 


194  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  emotional  relationship  with  people ;  and 
out  in  the  meadows  where  the  sun  shone  bright, 
the  breeze  blew  soft,  and  the  first  daisies  showed 
their  heads  among  the  grass,   Hugh  asked  him 
to  explain  what  he  felt  about  his  relationship 
with  others.   His  friend  said  that  it  came  to  this, 
that  jt.was^the^ only  real  and  vital  thing  in  the 
world ;  and  when   Hugh  pressed  him  further, 
and  asked  him  what  he  felt  about  the  artistic 
life,  his  friend  said  that  it  was  a  great  mystery, 
because  art  also  seemed  to  him  a  strong,  en- 
trancing, fascinating  thing  ;  but  that  it  ran  coun- 
ter to  and  cut  across  his  relations  with  others, 
and  seemed  almost  like  a  violent  and  distract- 
ing temptation,  that  tore  him  away  from  all 
vital  impulse.    He  added  t^at_the  j)roblem  as 
to  whether  individuality  endured  (of  which  they 
had  spoken  earlier^  seemed  to  him  not_to  affect 
the  question  at  all,  any  more  than  it  afTected 
one's  sleep  or  appetite.    At  this,  for  a  moment, 
a  mist  seemed  to  roll  away  from  Hugh's  eyes, 
though  he  knew  that  it  would  close  in  again,  and 
foran  instant  he  understood ;  to  himself  relations 
with  others  were  but  one  class  of  beautiful  ex- 
periences, like  art,  and  music,  and  nature,  and 
hints  of  the  unseen  ;  not  differing  in  quality, 
but    only   in    kind,    from    other    experiences. 
Hugh  saw,  too,  in   the  same  flash  of  insight, 
that  what  kept  him  from  emotional  relation- 


Sensitiveness  195 

ships  was  a  certain  timidity — a  dislike  of  any- 
thing painful  or  disturbing ;  and  that  the  mis- 
take  he  made,  if  that  can  be  called  a  mistake 
which  was  so  purely  instinctive,  was  his  desire  ,/ 
to  obliterate  and  annihilate  all  the  unpleasing, 
painful,  and  disagreeable  elements  from  all  cir- 
cumstances and  situations.  The  reason  why  \ 
Hugh  did  not  hunger  and  thirst  after  friend- 
ship was,  he  saw,  that  inconveniences,  humours, 
misunderstandings,  mannerisms,  entourage^  were 
all  so  many  disagreeable  incidents  which  inter- 
fered with  his  tranquillity  of  enjoyment.  If  he 
had  really  loved,  these  things  would  have 
weighed  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
need  of  satisfying  the  desire  of  relationship  ;  as 
it  was,  they  weighed  so  much  with  Hugh  that 
they  overpowered  the  other  instinct.  It  was 
really  a  sort  of  luxuriousness  of  temperament 
that  intervened  ;  and  Hugh  felt  that  for  a  man 
to  say  that  he  loved  his  friends,  and  yet  to 
allow  this  fastidious  sense  of  discomfort  to 
prevent  his  seeing  them,  was  as  if  a  man  said 
that  he  was  devoted  to  music,  and  yet  allowed 
the  tumult  of  concert-rooms  to  prevent  his 
ever  going  to  hear  music.  And  yet  the  lan- 
guage of  friendship  was  so  familiar,  and  the 
power  of  multiplying  relations  with  others  was 
so  facile  a  thing  with  Hugh,  that  he  saw  that 
his  failure  in  the  matter  was  a  deplorable  and  a 


196  Beside  Still  Waters 

miserable  thing.  He  was  singularly  and  even 
richly  equipped  for  the  pursuit  of  friendship  ; 
while  his  very  sensitiveness,  his  inherent  epicu- 
reanism, which  made  advance  so  easy,  made 
progress  impossible. 

And  yet  he  realised  that  it  was  useless  to  de- 
plore this ;  that  no  amount  of  desire  for  the 
larger  and  deeper  experience  would  make  him 
capable  of  sustaining  its  pains  and  penalties. 
He  saw  that  he  was  condemned  to  pass  through 
life,  a  smiling  and  courteous  spectator  of  beauty 
and  delight ;  but  that,  through  a  real  and  vital  L 
deficiency  of  soul,  he  could  have  ^10  share  in  1 
the  inner  and  holier  mysteries.  -^    / 


h^ 


XX 

Hitherto  it  had  seemed  to  Hugh  thatjjfe 
was  a  struggle  toescape  from  hirnself,  from 
that  hauntj^ng  personality  which,  like  a  shadow, 
dogged  and  imitated  his  movements,  but  all 
with  a  sombre  blackness,  a  species  of  business- 
like sadness  of  gesture,  doing  heavily  and  me- 
chanically what  he  himself  did  with  such 
blitheness  and  joy.  Again  and  again  that  self 
seemed  to  thwart,  to  hinder,  to  check  him. 
There  were  days,  it  seemed  to  him,  when  a 
conflict  was  waged,  an  unequal  conflict,  between 
that  outer  and  that  inner  self.  Days  when  the 
i^e^r  spirit  was  intense,  alert,  eager,  and  when 
the  outer _self  was  languid,  dreary,  mockingly 
sedate  and  indolent.  Again  there  were  days, 
and  these  were  the  saddest  of  all,  when  the 
inner  spirit  seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  tranquil, 
EIgh-mmdedj_and^^t^  ;  when  that  outer  self 
was  malign,  turbulent,  and  headstrong,  and 
when  all  the  resolution  and  vigour  he  possessed 
appeared  to  be  wasted,  not  in  following  the 
higher  aims  and  imaginings  with  a  patient  pur- 
197 


198  Beside  Still  Waters 

pose,  but  in  curbing  and  reining  the  rough  and 
coltish  nature  that  seemed  so  sadly  yoked  with 
his  own.  He  felt  on  those  days  like  a  wearied 
and  fretful  charioteer,  driving  through  a  scene 
of  rich  and  moving  beauty,  on  which  he  would 
fain  feast  his  eyes  and  heart,  but  compelled  to 
an  incessant  watchfulness,  a  despairing  strain, 
in  watching  and  guiding  his  refractory,  his 
spiteful  steeds.  The  control  he  had  never  for- 
feited wholly.  Perhaps  his  sensitiveness,  his 
solitariness,  his  fastidiousness,  had  tended  to 
keep  his  sensuous  nature  within  bounds. 

But  he  went  through  strange  moods,  when 
he  could  almost  wish  that  he  had  not  been  so 
cautious,  so  prudent ;  he  felt  that  he  had  trav- 
elled through  life  as  a  spectator  merely ;  and 
the  element  of  passionate  feeling,  of  confessed 
devotion,  of  uncalculating  love,  had  passed  him 
by.  He  used,  in  these  moods,  to  wish  that  he 
had  some  soul-stirring  experience  to  look  back 
upon,  some  passionate  affection,  some  over- 
powering emotion,  which  might  have  con- 
strained him  to  open  and  unashamed  utterance. 
How  had  he  missed,  he  used  to  ask  himself, 
the  experience  of  a  deep  and  whole-hearted 
love?  There  was  nothing  easier  in  the  world 
than  to  establish  a  certain  intimacy  of  relation. 
He  had,  he  was  aware,  a  friendly  air  and  a  cer- 
tain simple  charm  of  manner,  which  made  it  an 


Limitations  199 

easy  thing  for  him  to  say  what  was  in  his  mind. 
A  single  interview  was  often  enough  for  him  to 
make  a  friendship.  He  had  an  acute  superficial 
sensibility,  which  made  it  very  easy  for  him  to 
divine  another's  tastes  and  emotions ;  and  his 
own  emotional  experiences,  his  freedom  of  ex- 
pression, gave  him  the  power  of  interpreting 
and  entering  into  the  feelings  of  others.  But 
his  experience  was  always  the  same.  He  could 
clasp  hands  with  another  soul,  he  could  step 
pleasantly  and  congenially  through  the  ante- 
rooms and  corridors  of  friendship  ;  but  as  soon 
as  the  great  door  that  led  to  the  inner  rooms 
of  the  house  came  in  sight,  a  certain  coldness, 
a  shamefacedness  held  him  back;  the  hand  was 
dropped,  the  expected  word  unspoken. 

Thus  Hugh  found  himself  with  a  great  num- 
ber of  close  friends,  and  without  a  single 
intimate  one.  He  had  nev^  bared  his  heart 
to  another,  he  had  never  seen  another  heart 
bare  before  his  eyes.  He  had  never  let  him- 
self go.  Thus  he  was  a  master,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  emotional  elements  up  to  a  certain  point ; 
but  he  had  never  made  a  surrender  of  himself, 
and  had  always  with  a  certain  coldness  checked 
any  signs  of  a  surrender  in  others.  A  close 
friendship  had  once  been  abruptly  ended  by 
the  bestowal  of  certain  deep  confidences  by  his 
friend,    sad  and  touching   confidences.      This 


200  Beside  Still  Waters 

incident,  had  drawn  a  veil  between  him  and  his 
friend,  a  veil  that  he  could  not  withdraw.  His 
evident  coldness,  on  the  day  following,  to  the 
friend  who  had  trusted  him,  disconcerted  and 
repelled  the  other.  Hugh  could  remember  a 
mute  and  appealing  look  that  he  gave  him  ;  but 
though  he  felt  that  he  was  acting  ungenerously 
and  even  basely,  he  could  only  meet  it  with  a 
blank  and  repellent  gaze,  and  the  friendship  had 
been  broken  off,  never  to  be  renewed.  He  had 
made,  too,  friends  with  women  both  of  his  own 
age  and  older  ;  but  the  moment  that  the  friend, 
ship  seemed  cemented,  the  emotion  on  Hugh's 
part  cooled  into  a  camaraderie  which  was  both 
misunderstood  and  blamed.  Why  go  so  far  if 
you  did  not  mean  to  go  further  ?  appeared  to  be 
the  unuttered  question  which  met  him ;  to 
which  his  own  temperament  seemed  always  to 
to  reply.  Why  shake  our  easy  and  comfortable 
friendship  by  distracting  and  bewildering  emo- 
tions ?  It  was,  Hugh  grew  to  discern,  a  real 
blot  in  his  character  ;  it  was  a  prudence,  a  cau- 
tion in  emotional  things,  a  terror,  no  doubt  in 
a  sensitive  spirit  of  giving  pledges,  of  making 
vows,  of  surrendering  the  will  and  the  spirit.  It 
did  not  indeed  bring  him  unhappiness — ^that  was 
the  saddest  part  of  it ;  but  it  left  him  involved 
in  a  kind  of  selfish  isolation.  His  soul,  he  felt, 
was  like  a  smiling  island,  which  with  its  green 


A  Barren  Land  201 

glades  and  soft  turf  invites  the  wayfarer  to  set 
foot  therein,  with  a  smiling  welcome  from  the 
spirit  of  the  place.      But  the  wood  once  pene- 
trated, then  at  the  back  of  the  paradise  ran  a 
cliff-front  of  sad-coloured  crags,  preventing  fur- 
ther ingress.     If  indeed  the  shrine  of  the  island 
had  stood  guarded  within  a  temple  which,  in  its 
deep  columned   and    shadowed   recesses,   had 
shielded  a  holy  presence,  it  would  have  been 
different ;  but  the  land  beyond  was  bare  and 
desolate.       That  was,  Hugh  thought,  the  solu- 
tion.     The  bright  foreshore,  the  waving  trees 
the  shelter  and  fountains,  seemed  to  promise  a 
place  of  delicate  delights ;  and  there  were  some 
of  those  who  landed  there,  who,  on  seeing  the 
pale  cliff  behind,  believed,  with  a  deep  curiosity, 
that  some  very  sacred  and  beautiful  thing  must 
there  be  enshrined.       But  it  was  the  emptiness 
of  the  further  land,  Hugh  thought,  that  made 
it  imperative  to  guard  the  mystery.     In  that 
bare  land  indeed  he    himself  seemed  to  pace, 
bitterly  pondering ;  he  would    even    kneel  on 
the    bare    rocks,   and    hold  out   his  hands  in 
intense  entreaty  to  the  God  who  had  made  him 
and  who  withdrew  Himself  so  relentlessly  with- 
in the  blank  sky,  that  a  blessing  might  fall  upon 
the  stony  wilderness.      But  this  blessing  was 
withheld  ;  whether  by  his  own  fault,  or  through 
the  just  will  of  the  Father,   Hugh  could  not 


202  Beside  Still  Waters 

wholly  discern.  The  hard  fact  remained  that 
thejnner  fortress  was  blank  and  bare,  and  that 
no  friend  or  lover  could  be  invited  thither. 

But  as  Hugh's  manhood  melted  into  his 
middle^age,  the  conflict  between  the  outer  and 
inner  spirit  decreased.  He  was  still,  as  ever,  con- 
scious of  the  coldness  of  his  inner  heart ;  but  he 
grew  to  believe  that  a  compromise  was  possible, 
and  that  his  work  was  to  cheer  and  welcome, 
with  all  the  outer  resources  at  his  command,  any 
pilgrims  who  sought  his  aid.  He  became  pa- 
tiently and  unwearyingly  kind.  There  was  no 
trouble  he  would  not  take  for  any  one  who  ap- 
pealed to  him.  He  gave  a  simple  affection,  a 
quiet  sympathy,  with  eager  readiness ;  and 
learned  that,  if  ..he  lacked  that  fiery  and  impe- 
tuous core  of  emotion,  which  can  make  the 
whole  world  different  to  those  who  can  light 
their  torches  at  its  glow,  yet  he  could  smooth 
the  path  and  comfort  the  steps  of  less  ardent, 
less  impulsive  spirits.  He  could  add  sornethjng 
of  light  and  warmth  to  the  cold  world.  If  some- 
times those  who  were  atlra£,ted  by  h.l§- genial 
bearing  and  sympathetic  kindness  were  disap- 
pointed and  troubled  at  finding  how  slender  a 
stream  it  was,  well,  that  was  inevitable.  He 
realised  himself  that  his  was^a^shallovv  nature, 
full  of  motion  and  foam,  wide  but  not  deep,  and 
that  its  bright  force  and  swift  curves  hid  from 


A  Quiet  Choice  203 

others,  though  not  from  himself,  its  lack  of  force 
and  energy.  And  so  when  it  came  to  him  to  lay 
aside  his  public  work,  and  to  enter  a  life  which 
seemed  an  almost  disappointingly  meagre  field 
to  those  who  had  formed  high  hopes  of  him, 
believing  that  he  had  a  rich  and  prodigal  na- 
ture, a  depth  of  insight  and  force,  he  made  the 
change  himself  with  a  fervent  and  abundant 
gratitude ;  feeling  that  he  was  unequal  to  the 
larger  claims,  and  would  but  have  attempted  to 
hide  his  lack  of  force  under  a  certain  brisk  live- 
liness and  paradoxical  display ;  while  that  in  the 
narrow  channel  which  his  life  now  entered,  he 
would  at  least  be  employing  all  the  force  of 
which  he  was  capable. 

He  was  not  free  from  misgivings ;  but  he  felt 
that  what  appeared  to  be  a  shrinking  and  coward- 
ly diffidence  to  others,  was  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  richness  of  his  outer  nature,  the  exuber- 
ance of  which  they  held  to  issue  from  a  reservoir 
of  secret  force  ;  but,  though  he  sighed  at  their 
disappointment,  he  felt  that  he  was  estimating 
himself  more  truly;  and  that  he  lacked  that 
inner  fulness  of  spirit,  that  patient  unselfish- 
ness, which  could  alone  have  sustained  him.  He 
remained  indeed  a  child,  with  the  charm,  the 
gaiety,  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  but  with  the 
wilfulness,  the  faint-heartedness,  the  desultori- 
ness  of  a  child.    And  he  felt  that  in  making  his 


204  Beside  Still  Waters 

choice  he  was  indeed  following  the  will  of  his 
Father,  making  the  most  of  his  single  talent, 
instead  of  juggling  with  it  to  make  it  appear  to 
be  two  or  even  ten. 

He  had  his  reward  in  an  immediate  and  simple 
JtranquilHty  of  spirit.  He^jneyer  doubted  nor 
looked  back.  Those  who  saw  him,  and  thought 
regretfully  what  he  might  have  been,  what  he 
might  have  done,  would  sometimes  give  utter- 
ance to  their  disappointment,  and  even  peevish- 
ly blame  him.  But  here  again  his  coldness  of 
temperament  assisted  him.  He  submitted  to 
such  criticisms  and  censures  with  a  regretful  air, 
as  though  he  were  half  convinced  of  their  truth. 
But  the  severer  and  sterner  spirit  within  was 
never  touched  or  affected.  Ambitious  and  fond 
of  display  as  he  had  been,  the  loss  of  dignity 
and  influence  weighed  nothing  with  him  ;  he  was 
even  surprised  to  find  how  little  it  touched  him 
with  any  stnse  of  regret  or  yearning.  His  fear 
had  been  once  that  perhaps  he  was  great,  and 
that  indolence  and  luxuriousness  alone  held  him 
back  from  exercising  that  greatness.  But  God 
had  been  good  to  him  in  neither  humiliating 
nor  exposing  him,  and  now  that  he  himself  had 
lifted  the  lid  of  the  ark  in  the  innermost  shrine, 
and  had  seen  how  bare  and  unfurnished  it  was, 
he  saw  in  a  flash  of  humble  insight  how  wisely 
he  was  held  back. 


The  Vale  of  Humiliation      205 

Truth,  however  painful,  has  always  something 
bracing  and  sustaining  about  it ;  and  the  days  in 
which  Hugh  learned  the  truth  aboui  himself  had 
nothing  of  gloom  or  sadness  about  them.  The 
discovery  indeed  surprised  him  with  a  certain 
lightness  and  freshness  of  spirit.  He  smiled  to 
think  that  he  had  entered  the  vale  of  humilia- 
tion, and  had  found  it  full  of  greenness  and 
musical  with  fountains.  A  great  flood  of  peace 
flowed  in  upon  him  ;  and  all  the  delicate  love 
of  nature,  of  trees  and  skies,  of  flowers  and  mov- 
ing water,  came  back  to  him  with  an  increased 
and  deep  significance.  Before  he  had  seen  their 
outward  appearance ;  now  he  looked  into  their 
spirit ;  and  so  he  passed  along  the  dreary  valley 
light  of  foot  and  singing  to  himself.  Mr.  Fear- 
ing, in  the  Pilgrim  s  Progress,  went  down  from 
the  House  Beautiful  into  the  valley,  said  Mr. 
Greatheart,  "  as  well  as  ever  I  saw  man  in  my 
life.  I  never  saw  him  better  in  all  his  pilgrim- 
age than  when  he  was  in  that  valley.  Here  he 
would  lie  down,  embrace  the  ground,  and  kiss 
the  very  flowers  that  grew  in  the  valley.  He 
would  now  be  up  every  morning  by  break  of  day 
tracing  and  walking  to  and  fro  in  this  valley.  " 

Even  so  was  it  with  Hugh.  The  place  that 
he  had  feared  was  revealed  to  him  in  a  moment 
as  his  native  air.  Men  do  not  lose  all  of  a  sud- 
den their  temptations^  and  least  of  all  those 


2o6  Beside  Still  Waters 

who  have  desired  the  prize  rather  than  the  la- 
bour. But  Hugh  saw  that  the  place  where  he 
set  his  feet  was  holy.  And  as  for  his  poor  de- 
sires, he  put  them  in  the  hands  of  his  Father, 
and  rejoiced  to  find  that  they  were  faithfully 
and  serenely  purged  away. 

He  began  to  learn,  but  with  what  infinite 
difficulty,  what  entanglement  of  delay,  that  the 
great  mistake  that  he  had  made  in  his  religious 
life,  was  the  limiting  the  direct  influence  of 
God  to  the  pietistic,  the  devotional  reg^ion.  All 
the  tender  and  remote  associations  of  child- 
hood had  to  be  broken  off  and  drawn  away  one 
by  one,  as  one  snaps  and  pulls  ivy  down  from  a 
wall,  before  he  could  reach  the  thought  he  was 
approaching ;  and  how  often,  too,  did  the  old 
conception  surprise  him,  interrupt  him,  entangle 
him  again  unawares !  It  seemed  to  Hugh,  re- 
flecting on  the  prgblem,  how  strange  a  thing 
was  the  pageant  life  all  about  him,  the  march  of 
invisible  winds,  the  sweeping  up  of  cloudy  va- 
pours, the  slow  ruin  of  rocky  places,  the  spill- 
ing of  sweet  streams ;  and  then,  in  a  nearer 
region,  the  quaint  arbitrary  forms  of  living 
creatures,  their  innate  instincts,  their  intelli- 
gence, so  profoundly  and  delicately  organised 
in  one  direction,  so  weak  in  another  ;  and  then 
again  the  horrible  threads  of  cruelty,  of  suffering, 
of  death,   inwoven  so  relentlessly  in  the  fabric 


Contradictions  207 

of  the  world,  the  pitiless  preying  of  beast  upon 
beast ;  and,  further  still,  the  subtle  and  pathetic 
wisdom  of  the  human  spirit,  sadly  marking 
what  is  amiss,  and  setting  itself  so  feebly,  so 
pitifully,  to  amend  it ;  the  shaping  of  communi- 
ties, the  social  moralities,  so  distinct  from,  so  ad- 
verse to  the  morality  of  nature — reflecting,  as 
I  say,  on  these  things,  Hugh  became  aware, 
with  a  growing  astonishment,  that  though 
mankind  attributed,  in  an  easy  and  perfunctory 
way,  all  these  phenomena  to  the  creative  hand 
of  God,  yet  instead  of  trying  to  form  a  concep-.^-'i^ 
tion  of  Him  and  His  dark  thoughts  from  this 
legible  and  gigantic  handwriting,  which  revealed 
so  impenetrable,  so  imperturbable  a  will,  they 
sought  to  trace  His  influence  only  in  some  be- 
wildered region  of  the  human  spirit,  the  struggles 
of  inherited  conscience,  the  patient  charity  of 
men,  that  would  seek  to  knot  up  the  loose  ends 
which,  in  their  pathetic  belief  in  self-developed 
principles,  they  could  not  help  imagining  that 
the  Maker  of  all  had  left  unravelled  and  untied. 
To  believe  in  God  and  yet  to  seek  to  im- 
prove upon  His  ways !  what  a  strange  and  in- 
credible"contradiction !  And  yet  what  made 
the  position  a  more  bewildering  one  still  was 
the  certainty  that  these_yery  inner  impulses  to 
amend,  to  improve,  came^rom  God  as  clearly  as 
the  very_eyj]s  that  He  permitted  and  indeed 


2o8  Beside  Still  Waters 

originated.  What  was  the  exit  from  this  intol- 
erable tangle  of  thought  ?  Law  indeed  seemed 
absolute,  law  on  a  scale  at  once  so  colossal  and 
so  minute,  law  that  sent  the  planets  whirling 
through  space  round  the  central  sun — and  yet 
dwelt,  cell  within  cell,  in  the  heart  of  the  small- 
est pebble  that  rolled  upon  the  sea-beach.  And 
side  by  side  with  this  law  ran  a  thwarting  force, 
an  impulse  to  make  man  do  blindly  the  very 
things  that  led  inevitably  to  destruction,  to  en- 
dow him  with  an  intense  desire  of  life,  and  yet 
to  leave  him  ignorant  of  the  laws  that  hurried 
him,  reluctant  and  amazed,  to  death.  Hugh 
?  grew  to  fe^l  that  some  compromise  was  neces- 
sary ;  that  to  live  in  the  natural  impulses  alone, 
j  or  in  the  developed  impulses  alone,  wgs^an  im- 
1  possibility.  A  hundred  voices  called  him,  a 
j  hundred  hands  beckoned  or  waved  him  back; 
nature  prornpted  one  thing,  reason  another,  as- 
sociation another,  piety  another ;  and  yet  each 
was  in  a  sense  the  calling  of  God.  The  saddest 
thing  was  that  to  obey  any  of  the  voices  brought 
no  peace  or  tranquillity  ;  he  obeyed  piety,  and 
nature  continued  fiercely  to  prompt  the  oppo- 
site; he  obeyed  association,  and  reason  mocked 
his  choice.  He  became  aware  that  in  order  to 
triumph  over  these  manifold  and  uneasy  con- 
tradictions, a  certain  tranquillity  of  mind  must 
be  acquired ;  he  found  that  to  a  large  extent  he 


Intuition  209 

must  trust  intuition,  which  could  at  all  events 
settle,  if  it  could  not  reconcile,  conflicting 
claims ;  even  when  reason  indicated  a  choice  of 
paths,  the  voice  of  the  soul  cried  out  clearly  the 
way  that  he  must  choose ;  the  obedience  to  in- 
tuition was  generally  approved  by  experience, 
until  Hugh  began  to  see,  at  last,  that  it  was  the 
guide  of  all,  and  that  thus  we  came  nearest  to. 
the  heart  of  God.  He  found,  indeed,  very  often,!' 
that  even  when  prudence  and  reason  afforded) 
excellent  reasons  for  abstaining  from  action,  to' 
yield  to  intuition  turned  out  to  be  the  wisest 
and  the  kindest  course ;  until,  in  practical  mat- 
ters, he  learned  to  trust  it  unhesitatingly,  even  if 
it  led  him,  as  the  light  led  the  pilgrim,  to  stum- 
ble for  a  time  in  a  field  full  of  dark  mountains. 


XXI 

There  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  strong  vision- 
ary. -tendency  ia  Hugh,  which  had  been  to  a 
certain  extent  restricted  in  the  days  of  his  pro- 
fessional Hfe ;  but  now  that  he  was  free,  it  be- 
gan to  recur  with  extraordinary  frequency  and 
force.  It  was  when  he  was  reading  that  this  fac- 
ulty visited  him,  as  a  rule,  and  more  especially 
when  he  read,  as  he  was  accustomed  to  do,  after  he 
was  awake  in  the  morning,  until  the  time.came 
for  him  to  rise.  The  mind,  struggling  to  free 
itself  from  the  dominion  of  sleep,  had  not  yet 
put  on  the  obedience  of  the  day,  but  seemed  to 
act  with  whimsical  independence  of  its  own. 
His  thoughts  were  then  most  apt  to  wear 
a  melancholy  tinge ;  a  certain  apprehensive 
shadow  often  lay  upon  him,  a  sense  of  being  un- 
equal to  the  claims  of  the  day,  a  tendency  to 
rehearse,  without  hopefulness  or  spring,  the 
part  he  would  have  to  play,  to  exaggerate  dif- 
ficulties and  obstacles.  Reading,  as  a  rule, 
served  to  distract  his  thoughts ;  but  it  was 
hardly  an  intellectual  so  much  as  a  meditative 

2IO  ~ 


A  Far-off  Day  211 

process ;  the  thoughts  and  words  of  the  writer, 
on  such  occasions,  often  seemed  to  him  like 
beaters  going  through  a  covert,  tramping  the 
fern  and  rapping  the  tree  trunks,  starting  from 
their  lairs  all  kinds  of  hidden  game. 

One  morning  he  was  lying  thus,  rea.ding 
quietly,  when  there  suddenly  darted  into  his 
mind,  for  no  particular  reason,  the  thought  of  a 
summer  day  he  had  spent  as  a  small  boy  at  his 
public  school.  It  had  been  a  holiday ;  the  day 
cloudless  and  bright,  yet  with  a  delicious  cool- 
ness in  the  air;  and  the  sunshine  fell,  he  re- 
membered, on  the  great  trees  of  the  place  and 
the  venerable  buildings,  gleaming  through  a 
golden  haze,  which  made  it  seem  as  though  he 
viewed  everything,  not  through  empty  air,  but 
through  a  tinted  and  tangible  medium,  as  it 
were  an  aerial  honey,  which  lent  a  liquid  sweet- 
ness to  all  outlines  and  surfaces.  He  had  wan- 
dered off  with  a  friend,  in  that  perfect  afternoon, 
through  the  meadows,  for  a  long  vague  ramble, 
ending  up  with  a  bathe  in  the  river.  The  day 
was  beautifully  still,  and  he  could  almost  smell 
the  hot  honeyed  fragrance  of  the  flowers,  and 
hear  the  angry  murmur  of  the  busy  flies,  that 
sat  basking  on  the  leaves  of  the  hedgerow. 
He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  been  full  of  a 
vague  and  restless  emotion,  a  sense  of  happi- 
ness that  just  missed  its  end,  that  would  have 


212  Beside  Still  Waters 

been  complete  if  there  had  not  been  something 
wanting,  some  satisfaction  of  an  instinct  that 
he  could  not  put  into  words.  His  companion 
had  been  a  boy  of  his  own  age,  who,  it  had 
seemed  to  Hugh,  was  in  the  same  wistful  mood. 
But  there  had  been  no  attempt  to  express  in 
words  any  of  these  thoughts.  They  had 
walked  for  the  most  part  in  silence,  interrupted 
by  the  vague,  inconsequent,  and  rather  gruff  re- 
marks, that  are  the  symbols  of  equal  friendship. 
They  had  rambled  a  long  way  beside  the  stream, 
with  the  thick  water-plants  growing  deep  at  the 
edge.  The  river  came  brimming  down,  clear 
and  cool,  the  tiny  weeds  swaying  among  the 
dark  pools,  the  rushes  bowing  and  bending,  as 
though  plucked  by  unseen  hands.  The  stream 
was  full  of  boys  in  boats,  and  the  eager  noise 
and  stir  were  not  congenial  to  Hugh's  medita- 
tive mood.  The  bathing-place  was  by  a  weir 
where  the  green  water  plunged  through  the 
sluices,  filling  the  stream  with  foam  and  sound: 
all  about  floated  the  exquisite  reedy  smell  of 
warm  river  water,  bringing  with  it  a  sense  of 
cool  and  unvisited  places,  hidden  backwaters 
among  green  fields,  where  the  willows  leaned 
together,  and  the  fish  hung  mute  in  the  pools. 
They  had  bathed  under  a  tall  grove  of  poplars, 
and  Hugh  could  remember  the  dehcious  fresh- 
ness of  the  turf  under  his  naked  feet,  and  the 


A  Compact  213 

sun-warmed  heat  of  the  wooden  beams  of  the 
wharf.  The  plunge  in  the  cold  bubbling  water 
had  swept  all  his  thoughts  away  into  the  mere 
joy  of  life,  but  as  he  sat,  after  dressing,  with  the 
music  of  the  water  in  his  ears,  the  same  wistful 
mood  had  settled  down  on  his  mind. 

What  did  it  all  mean  ?  Whither  was  all  this 
beauty,  this  delight  tending?  He  thought  of 
all  the  generations  of  boys  who  had  bathed  in 
this  place,  full  of  joy  and  life.  Where  were 
they  all  now?  He  thought  of  those  who 
should  come  after,  when  he  too  was  gone  to 
take  his  place  in  the  world.  And  then  they 
had  gone  slowly  back  through  the  meadows, 
with  a  delicious  languor  of  sensation  ;  the  sun 
was  now  beginning  to  decline,  and  the  blue 
wooded  hills  across  the  stream,  with  the  smoke 
going  up  beneath  them  from  unseen  houses, 
wore  the  same  air  of  holding  some  simple  and 
sweet  secret  which  they  would  not  tell,  and 
which  Hugh  could  not  penetrate.  It  was  sad, 
too,  to  think  that  the  beautiful  day  was  done, 
become  a  memory  only ;  and  that  he  must 
plunge  again  for  the  morrow  and  for  many 
morrows  into  the  tide  of  affairs  and  boisterous 
life.  He  made  one  effort  to  put  his  thoughts 
into  words.  Putting  his  arm  for  a  moment  in 
the  arm  of  his  companion,  he  said,  "  Let  us 
remember    to-day  I "      His    friend,    who    was 


214  Beside  Still  Waters 

walking  sedately  along  with  a  stalk  of  grass 
between  his  lips,  looked  at  him  in  a  peculiar 
manner,  smiled  and  nodded  ;  this  little  com- 
pact, so  quietly  made,  seemed  for  an  instant  to 
have  brought  Hugh  and  his  friend  together 
into  a  charmed  circle.  Had  his  friend  forgot- 
ten what  he  remembered?  The  last  time  he 
had  seen  him,  he  had  found  a  prosperous  busi- 
ness man,  full  of  affairs ;  and  he  had  not 
reminded  him  of  the  day  when  they  went 
together  by  the  stream. 

The  whole  picture  came  before  Hugh  as  an 
almost  impossible  sweet  and  rapturous  mem- 
ory, clutching  with  a  poignant  passion  at  his 
heart.  What  was  the  secret  of  the  fragrant 
days  that  had  departed  and  could  never  return  ? 
Was  it  well  to  recall  them  ?  And  what  too 
was  the  secret  of  that  strange  and  beautiful 
alchemy  of  the  mind,  that  forgot  all  the  trou- 
bles and  cares  of  the  old  life,  and  even  touched 
the  few  harsh  incidents  that  it  did  retain  with 
a  wistful  beauty,  as  though  they  had  had  some 
desirable  element  in  them  ?  Would  it  not  be 
better,  more  tranquillising  for  the  spirit,  if  the 
memory  retained  only  the  dark  shadows  of 
the  past?  so  that  the  mind  could  turn  with 
zest  and  interest  to  the  joys  of  the  moment? 
Instead  of  that,  memory  tempted  the  soul,  by 
a  kind  of  magical  seduction,  to  dwell  only  upon 


Fragrant  Memories  215 

what  was  sweet  and  beautiful  in  the  past, 
thereby  emphasising  and  heightening  the  sense 
of  dissatisfaction  with  the  present.  Was  it 
true  that  the  very  days  that  were  then  passing, 
those  sober,  uneventful  days,  would  at  some 
future  time  be  touched  by  the  same  reluctant, 
pathetic  quality  of  recollection  ?  It  was  cer- 
tainly so ;  the  mind,  dwelling  on  the  past,  had 
that  extraordinary  power  of  rejecting  all  the 
dreary  debris  of  life,  and  leaving  only  the  pure 
gold,  a  hundred  times  refined ;  and  yet  it 
brought  with  it  that  mournful  shadow  of  sad- 
ness, of  the  irrevocable,  the  irreplaceable  past. 
But  it  seemed,  too,  to  hold  a  hope  within  it,  a 
hope  that,  if  the  pilgrimage  of  the  soul  were 
not  to  be  ended  by  death,  then  memory,  un- 
shadowed by  present  sadness,  in  the  deep  con- 
tent of  a  freedom  from  all  material  anxieties, 
might  become  one  of  the  purest  and  deepest 
treasures  that  it  was  possible  to  conceive. 
Hugh  thought  that  his  disembodied  spirit 
might,  in  the  after  time,  perhaps  haunt  those 
very  river-banks,  and  with  the  mystery  solved 
that  had  oppressed  and  darkened  his  human 
pilgrimage,  might  surrender  itself  to  that  beau- 
tiful and  absolute  tranquillity,  that  peace  which 
the  world  could  not  give,  for  which  he  daily 
and  hourly  yearned.  Perhaps  indeed  it  was 
the  presence  of  some  such  invisible,  haunting 


2i6  Beside  Still  Waters 

revenant  whispering  at  his  ear,  longing  even 
for  some  contact  with  healthy  humanity,  that 
had  given  him  the  wistful  sense  of  mystery 
and  longing.     Who  could  say  ? 

And  then  the  mood  of  recollection  lapsed 
and  rolled  away  like  mists  from  a  morning  hill, 
and  left  Hugh  once  more  confronted  with  the 
ugliness  and  dreariness  of  the  actual  world ; 
only  from  his  vision  remained  the  hope,  the 
resolution,  to  extract  from  life,  as  it  passed,  the 
purest  and  most  delicate  elements;  its  sweet- 
ness, its  serenity  ;  so  that  he  might  leave,  as  far 
as  was  possible,  an  inheritance  of  undimmed 
beauty  for  the  memory  to  traffic  with,  to  rid  it 
so  far  as  he  could  from  all  the  envy,  the  dull 
detail,  the  tiresome  complexities  that  might 
poison  retrospect,  leaving  nothing  but  the  fine  / 
gold  of  thought.  I   ^>^ 


f^ 


XXII 

Hugh  was  wcindering  as  his  custom  was,  one 
hot  and  thunderous  day,  in  the  country  lanes  ; 
it_wasjvery  still,  and  through  the  soft  haze  that 
filled  the  air,  the  distant  trees  and  fields  lost 
their  remoteness,  and  stood  stiffly  and  quaintly 
as  though  painted.  There  seemed  a  presage  of 
storm  in  the  church-tower,  which  showed  a  ghost- 
ly white  among  the  elms.  A  fitful  breeze  stirred 
at  intervals.  Hugh  drew  near  the  hamlet, 
and  all  of  a  sudden  stepped  into  a  stream  of 
inconceivable  swiftness  and  fragrance  ;  he  saw 
in  a  moment  what  was  its  origin.  The  straw- 
berry.pickers  were  out  in  a  broad  field,  and 
from  the  crushed  berries,  however  lightly  bruis- 
ed, there  poured  this  flow  of  scent,  at  once  rich 
and  pure,  with  all  the  native  soul  of  the  fruit  ex- 
haling upon  the  air.  It  was  to  other  familiar 
scents  like  ointment  poured  forth ;  it  seemed 
indeed  to  Hugh  that  anything  so  intensely  im- 
pressive to  the  sense  ought  to  have  power  to 
tinge  the  colourless  air,  which  was  thus  so 
exquisitely  laden  and  impregnated. 
217 


2i8  Beside  Still  Waters 

He  was  now  close  to  the  church.  It  was 
ajittle,  low,  ancient  structure,,  with  a  small, 
quaint,  open  belfry,  beautifully  proportioned, 
and  all  built  out  of  a  soft  and  mellow  grey 
stone.  The  grass  grew  long  in  the  church- 
yard, which  was  not  so  much  neglected  as 
wisely  left  alone,  and  an  abundance  of  pink 
mallow,  growing  very  thickly,  gave  a  touch 
of  bright  colour  to  the  grass.  He  stopped 
for  a  while  considering  the  grave  of  a  child, 
who  died  at  the  age  of  five  years,  with  an 
artless  epitaph  painted  on  a  wooden  cross. 
The  grave  was  piously  tended,  though  it 
bore  a  date  of  some  ten  years  back ;  there 
were  little  rose-trees  growing  there,  and  a 
border  of  pansies,  all  the  work,  Hugh  fancied 
of  children,  doing  gentle  honour  to  a  dead 
sister ;  whom  they  thought  of,  no  doubt,  as  ly- 
ing below  in  all  her  undimmed  childish  beauty ; 
the  pale  face,  the  waxen  limbs,  the  flowing 
hair,  as  they  had  looked  their  last  upon  her, 
waiting  in  a  quiet  sleep  for  the  dawn  of  that 
other  morning.  How  much  better  to  think 
of  her  so,  than  of  the  dreadful  reality  which 
Hugh,  in  a  sudden,  almost  terrified,  flash  of 
fancy,  knew  to  be  lying,  an  almost  insup- 
portable blot  upon  all  that  was  fair  and 
seemly,  in  the  stained  and  mouldered  coffin. 
Yet  there  was  a  place  for  that  difficult  horror 


Death  219 

too  in  the  scheme  of  things,  though  the 
thought  seemed  almost  to  taint  the  sweet  air 
of  the  place. 

This  was  only  one  of  the  parts  of  the 
great  mystery  over  which  he  brooded  so  often  ; 
the  noisome  things  of  the  world,  its  weakness 
its  decay ;  the  shivering  repugnance  of  the 
spirit,  the  almost  impossibility  of  joy  or  cour- 
age in  the  presence  of  such  thoughts ;  that 
was  the  strangest  part  of  it,  the  rebellion  of 
the  inmost  central  spirit  against  what  was  so 
natural,  so  common.  Death  was  harsh  enough, 
but  that  it  should  be  attended  with  such  an 
extremity  of  disgrace  and  degradation — that 
seemed  an  intolerable  thing. 

Yet  to  the  charnel-worm,  rioting  in  all  the 
horror  of  decay,  there  could  be  nothing  but  a 
blind  joy  in  the  conditions  which  Hugh  hardly 
even  dared  to  imagine.  To  indulge  such 
thoughts  was  morbid,  perhaps.  But  here  they 
presented  themselves  at  every  turn,  and  Hugh 
felt  that  to  turn  his  back  upon  them  was  but  to 
shirk  the  part  of  the  problem  that  he  disliked. 
Not  so  could  he  attain  to  any  knowledge  of  the 
secret  of  things.  The  horror  must  not  of  course 
be  unduly  emphasised  ;  the  morbidity  lay  there, 
in  the  danger  of  seeing  things  out  of  due  pro- 
portion ;  but  the  proportion  was  just  as  much 
sacrificed,  indeed  more  sacrificed,  by  ignoring 


220  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  facts.  Neither  was  he  at  all  afraid  of  any 
undue  preponderance  of  the  morbid  element  in 
his  contemplations.  He  took  far  too  deep  a 
delight  in  the  beautiful  and  gracious  sights  and 
sounds  of  earth  for  that ;  and  the  conclusion 
that  he  drew,  as  he  turned  away,  was  that  a 
suspension  of  judgment  in  the  face  of  an  in- 
soluble mystery  was  the  only  course ;  to  leave 
the  windows  of  the  soul  open  to  every  im- 
pression, to  every  fact,  whether  it  was  the 
voice  and  glance  of  humanity,  the  sweetness  of 
art  and  sound,  the  appeal  of  ancient  buildings, 
the  waving  of  tall  trees,  the  faces  of  bright 
flowers,  the  songs  of  lively  birds  in  the  thicket — 
ay,  and  the  intimations  of  death  and  decay  as 
well,  all  that  was  ugly  and  wretched  in  human- 
ity, the  coarse  song  from  the  alehouse,  the 
slatternly  woman  about  her  weary  work,  the 
crying  of  a  child  that  had  been  punished, 
the  foul  oozings  of  the  stockyard.  These  were 
all  as  real,  as  true  impressions  as  the  others. 
To  strike  some  balance,  neither  to  forget  the 
ideal  in  the  real,  or  to  lose  sight  of  the  real  in 
the  ideal,  that  was  his  task.  And  the  con- 
solation, though  a  stern  one,  lay  in  the  fact 
that,  dark  and  bitter  as  the  mystery  was  at 
one  point,  gracious  and  glowing  as  it  was  at 
another,  yet  it  was  certainly  there.  Concrete 
and  abstract,  the  impressions  of  sense,  the  in- 


The  Real  and  the  Ideal       221 

tuitions  of  the  spirit,  each  and  all  had  their 
part.  In  this  life,  this  swift  interchange  of 
darkness  and  light,  of  sunshine  and  gloom,  he 
might  never  approach  the  secret — nay,  he  did 
not  even  hope  that  he  would.  But  at  least  he 
could  draw  a  few  steps  nearer,  and  with  a 
humble  heart  he  would  wait  for  the  glory  that 
should  be  revealed,  or  for  the  silence  and  dark- 
ness that,  it  might  be,  would  close  upon  him. 
For  whatever  should  be  the  end,  Hugh  had  no 
doubt  that  there  was  certainly  behind  life  a 
mind  and  a  will,  to  which  it  was  not  only  no 
mystery,  but  a  truth  simple,  obvious,  and  plain  ; 
for  him,  his  duty  was  to  use  both  observation 
and  imagination  ;  not  to  let  the  imagination 
outrun  the  observation,  but  to  mark  all  that  he 
could,  and  infer  what  he  could ;  while  at  the 
same  time  he  felt  equally  sure  that  he  was  not 
to  be  a  mere  observer ;  blindly  registering  im- 
pressions, content  to  analyse  difficulties.  Bet- 
ter than  that  was  to  repose  an  ardent  faith  in 
his  intuitions ;  but  each  alike,  without  the  aid 
of  the  other,  was  perilous  and  insecure. 

While  he  thus  reflected,  there  seemed  to  flow 
into  his  mind  a  deep  melancholy,  which,  like  a 
dark  liquid  dropped  into  clear  water,  began  to 
tinge  and  cloud  the  translucent  tide.  To  live 
by  a  due  proportion  of  emotion  and  reason, 
thatjKa»-th€-~grcihiem  ;  but  how  were  they  to 


222  Beside  Still  Waters 

be  mingled  ?  One  seemed  so  isolated  in  the 
matter,  so  left  without  any  certainty  of  guid- 
ance. Ii_mie  allowed  emotion  too  ^reat  a 
latitude,  one  became  sentimental,  unbalanced, 
personal ;  if  one  was  swayed  by  reason,  one 
became  dry,  impersonal,  cold.  Was  one  indeed 
meant  to  stumble  along  the  track,  making  irre- 
parable mistakes,  seeing  only  in  retrospect,  with 
a  shocking  clearness  of  vision,  what  one  ought 
to  have  done?  Was  one  to  regret  alike  im- 
pulse and  prudence?  And  the  old  faults  of 
temperament,  how  they  appeared  and  re- 
appeared !  However  clearly  one  saw  one's 
mistakes,  however  much  one  admired  nobleness, 
and  generosity,  and  courage,  could  one  clfange 
the  innermost  character  at  all?  The  ghastly 
fact  was  that  one  seemed  framed  to  desire 
the  unattainable.  What  broken,  faded,  feeble 
things  the  majority  of  men's  lives  were  !  The 
pageant  of  human  life  seemed  nothing  more 
than  failure  on  a  gigantic  scale. 

Suddenly  the  lightning  writhed  and  fell,  the 
thunder  broke  out  over  Hugh's  head,  as  he 
walked  in  the  quiet  lane,  a  rattling,  furious  peal, 
like  leaden  weights  poured  in  a  cascade  upon  a 
vast  boarded  floor — an  inconceivable  sound,  from 
its  sharpness,  its  tangibility,  its  solidity,  to  pro- 
ceed from  those  soft  regions  of  the  air,  in  which 
a  velvety  greyness  dwelt  suffused,  with  a  lurid 


A  Thunder  Shower  223 

redness  in  the  west.  The  rain  fell  a  moment 
afterwards  in  a  soft  sheet,  leaping  in  the  road, 
and  making  a  mist  above  the  ground. 

It  was  soon  over,  while  Hugh  sheltered  in  a 
big  barn,  with  a  pleasant  dark  dusty  roof,  and 
high  piles  of  fragrant  straw  all  about  him. 

What  a  change  when  he  stepped  out !  the 
thunder  had  leaped  into  the  west,  the  air  was 
clean  and  sweet,  and  a  ravishing  scent  came 
from  the  satisfied  fields. 

With  the  drench  of  rain,  something  poisonous 
seemed  to  have  been  washed  out  of  Hugh's 
mind.  All  that  afternoon,  in  the  sullen  heat, 
he  had  brooded  stupidly  and  miserably  enough, 
picking  up,  as  it  were,  dart  after  dart  from  his 
little  bundle  of  cares  and  miseries,  and  pricking 
his  heart  with  them. 

Where  was  it  all  gone?  In  the  clear  fresh 
air  he  felt  like  a  man  awaked  from  a  night- 
mare, and  restored  to  cheerful  life  again.  What 
did  past  failures,  future  anxieties,  matter  to 
him  ?  He  had  his  work,  his  place,  his  liberty, 
and  what  further  could  he  need  ? 

His  liberty  !  How  good  that  was  !  He  might 
go  and  come  as  he  would,  unquestioned,  un- 
blamed.  He  thought  with  a  pitying  horror  of 
what  his  life  had  previousIv-...been — the  tangle  j/ 
of  small  engagements,  the  silly  routine  work, 
in  which  no  one  believed  ;  they  had  all  been 


224  Beside  Still  Waters 

bound  on  a  kind  of  make-believe  pilgrimage, 
carrying  burdens  round  and  round,  and  put- 
ting them  down  where  they  had  taken  them  up. 

He  determined  that,  whatever  happened,  he 
would  do  no  more  work  in  which  he  did  not 
believe,  that  he  would  say  what  he  felt,  not 
what  traditional  formulas  required  him  to  say. 
Work  !  he  believed  in  that  with  all  his  heart,  so 
long  as  it  had  an  end,  an  object.  To  wrestle 
with  the  comprehension  of  some  difficult  mat- 
ter, there  were  few  pleasures  like  that !  but  it 
must  have  been  an  advance,  when  it  was  over ; 
one  must  feel  that  one  is  stronger,  more  clear- 
minded,  more  alert,  more  sincere ;  one  must  not 
feel  that  one  was  only  more  weary,  more  dis- 
satisfied. His  path  was  clear  before  him  at  all 
events. 

Plans  and  schemes  began  to  rise  in  Hugh's 
brain ;  he  felt  as  if  he  was  delivered  from  the 
brooding  sway  of  some  evil  and  melancholy 
spirit.  How  strange  was  the  power  that  physi- 
cal conditions  had  upon  the  very  stuff  of  the 
mind  !  Half  an  hour  ago  the  grievances,  the 
self-pity,  the  dissatisfaction  had  appeared  to 
him  to  be  real  and  tangible  troubles ;  not  in- 
deed things  which  it  was  wise  to  brood  over, 
but  inevitable  pains,  to  be  borne  with  such 
philosophy  as  was  attainable.  But  now  they 
seemed  as  unreal,  as  untrue,  as  painful  dreams, 


Storm  and  Shadow  225 

from  which  one  wakes  with  a  sharp  and  great 
relief. 

What  remained  with  Hugh  was  the  sense  of 
one  of  the  dangers  of  solitary  life — the  over-in- 
fluence, the  preponderance  oT  sentiment.  The 
only  serenity  was  to  be  found  in  claiming  and 
expecting  nothing,  but  in  welcoming  what  came 
as  a  gift,  as  an  added  joy,  to  which  one  had  in- 
deed no  right ;  but  which  fell  like  the  sunshine 
and  the  rain  ;  one  must  be  ready  to  help,  to 
work,  to  use  one's  strength  at  whatever  point 
it  could  be  best  applied,  and  to  look  for  no  re- 
ward. This  was  what  poisoned  life,  the  claim 
to  be  paid  in  the  coin  that  pleased  one  best.  V^ 
Payment  indeed  was  made  largely ;  and  the 
blessed  thing  was  that  if  one  was  not  paid  fully 
for  one's  efforts,  neither  was  one  paid  relent- 
lessly for  one's  mistakes. 

And  then,  as  to  the  deeper  shadows  of  the 
world,  the  sorrows,  the  bereavements,  the  suf- 1 
ferings,  the  dark  possibilities,  that  lay  like  the  \ 
shadows  of  trees  across  a  sunlit  road — death    / 
itself,  that  grim  horizon  that  closed  the  view  / 
whichever  way  one  looked — the  mistake  lay  in 
attempting  to  reckon  with  them  beforehand,  to 
anticipate  them,  to  discount  them.    They  were 
all  part  of  the  plan,  and  one  could  not  alter 
them.     Better  to  let  them   come,  to  husband 
strength  and  joy  to  meet  them,  rather  than  to 


226  Beside  Still  Waters 

dissipate  one's  courage  by  dwelling  upon  them. 
Indeed  all  Hugh's  experience  showed  him  that 
troubles,  even  the  deepest,  wore  a  very  different 
aspect  when  one  was  inside  them. 

The  very  storm  itself  was  a  parable.  Those 
zigzag  ribbons  of  purple  fire,  the  fierce  shout- 
ing of  the  thunderclap  that  followed  !  In  all 
the  wide  forest-tracts  over  which  the  tempest 
hung,  all  that  grim  artillery  did  but  rend  and 
split  some  one  tough  tree.  Rather  it  turned 
again  to  gladden  the  earth,  and  the  tears  of 
heaven,  that  fell  so  steeply,  only  laid  the  dust 
of  the  hot  road,  and  filled  the  pasture  of  the 
lane  with  the  fragrance  of  the  cleansed  earth 
and  the  comforted  brake. 


XXIII 

As  Hugh  became  more  and  more  enamoured 
of  his  work,  and  of  the  sweet  peace  of  the 
country  side,  he  became  more  and  more  averse 
to  visiting  London.  But  he  was  forced  to  do 
this  at  intervals.  One  hot  summer  day  he  went 
thus  reluctantly  to  town  ;  the  rattle  of  the 
train,  the  heated  crowd  of  passengers,  the 
warm  mephitic  air  that  blew  into  the  car- 
riage from  the  stifling,  smoke-grimed  tunnel — 
all  these  seemed  to  him  insupporably  disgust- 
ing. But  the  sight,  the  sound,  the  very  smell 
of  London  itself,  was  like  a  dreadful  obsession  ; 
he  wondered  how  he  could  ever  have  endured 
to  live  there.  The  streets  lay  in  the  steady 
sun,  filled  with  fatigued,  hurrying  persons. 
The  air  was  full  of  a  sombre  and  oppressive 
murmur;  the  smell  of  the  roadways,  the  hot 
vapour  of  cook-shops,  the  din  and  whizz  of 
vehicles,  the  ceaseless  motion  of  faces:  all  this 
filled  him  with  a  deep  pity  for  those  who  had 
to  live  their  lives  under  such  conditions.  Was 
it  to  this  that  our  boasted  civilisation  had 
227 


228  Beside  Still  Waters 

brought  us  ?  and  yet  it  seemed  that  the  normal 
taste  of  ordinary  people  turned  by  preference 
to  this  humming  and  buzzing  life,  rather  than 
to  the  quiet  and  lonely  life  in  the  green  spaces 
of  the  country ;  Hugh  had  little  doubt  that 
the  vast  majority  of  those  he  saw,  even  the 
pale,  patient  work-people  who  were  peeping, 
as  they  toiled,  grimy  and  sweat-stained,  from 
the  open  windows,  would  choose  this  life  rather 
than  the  other,  and  would  have  condemned 
the  life  of  the  country  as  dull.  Was  it  he, 
Hugh  wondered,  or  they  that  were  out  of  joint  ? 
Ought  he  to  accept  the  ordinary,  sensible  point 
of  view,  and  try  to  conform  himself  to  it, 
crush  down  his  love  for  trees  and  open  fields 
and  smiling  waters  ?  The  sociable,  herding 
instinct  was  as  true,  as  God-sent  an  instinct  as 
his  own  pleasure  in  free  solitude ;  and  the  old 
adage  that  God  made  the  country  but  man  made 
the  town  was  as  patently  absurd  as  to  say 
that  God  made  the  iceberg,  but  the  ant  made 
the  ant-heap. 

He  went  to  his  club,  a  place  which  he  rarely 
entered  ;  it  was  full  of  brisk  and  cheerful  men, 
lunching  with  relish ;  some  of  them  had  hur- 
ried in  from  their  work,  and  were  enjoying  the 
hour  of  leisure  ;  some  were  the  old  frequenters 
of  the  place,  men  whose  work  in  the  world  was 
over,  as  well   as  men  who   had  never  known 


The  Club  229 

what  it  was  to  work.  But  these  men,  even 
some  who  seemed  crippled  with  age  and  infirm- 
ity, seemed  as  intent  upon  their  pleasures, 
as  avid  of  news,  as  eager  for  conversation, 
as  particular  about  their  food,  as  if  their 
existence  was  of  a  supreme  and  weighty  im- 
portance. Hugh  watched  an  elderly  rnan, 
whom  he  knew  by  name,  who  was  said  to  be 
the  most  unoccupied  man  in  London,  who 
was  administering  food  and  drink  to  himself 
with  a  serious  air  of  delicate  zest,  as  though  he 
were  presiding  benevolently  at  some  work  of 
charity  and  mercy.  He  had  certainly  flourished 
on  his  idleness  like  a  green  bay  tree  !  Hugh 
was  inclined  to  believe  in  the  necessity  to  hap- 
piness of  the  observance  of  some  primal  laws, 
like  the  law  of  labour,  but  here  was  a  contradic- 
tion to  all  his  theories.  He  sighed  to  think  of 
the  mountains  of  carefully  prepared  food  that 
this  rosy,  well-brushed  person  must  have  con- 
sumed in  the  course  of  his  life !  He  was  a 
notoriously  selfish  man,  who  never  laid  out 
a  penny  except  on  his  own  needs  and  pleasures. 
Yet  here  was  he,  guarded  like  the  apple  of 
God's  eye,  and  all  the  good  things  that  the  j 
earth  held — ease,  comfort,  independence,  health 
honour,  and  the  power  of  enjoyment — were 
heaped  upon  him  with  a  liberal  hand.  No 
wonder  he  thought  so  well  of  the  world  !     Hugh 


230  Beside  Still  Waters 

had  heard  him  say,  with  an  air  of  virtuous 
complacency,  that  he  was  generally  pretty 
comfortable. 

Hugh  did  not  grudge  his  luxurious  ease  with 
the  great  statesman  who  sat  in  the  corner, 
with  an  evening  paper  propped  up  on  a  silver 
dish,  and  some  iced  compound  bubbling  pleas- 
antly in  his  glass,  smiling  benignly  at  a  carica- 
ture of  himself.  He,  at  all  events,  paid  for  his 
comforts  by  unremitting  labour.  But  what  of 
the  sleek  and  goodly  drones  of  the  hive? 

Hugh  had  some  cheerful  unmeaning  talk  with 
several  of  his  old  friends,  who  regretted  that 
they  saw  so  little  of  him ;  he  laughed  with 
careful  enjoyment  at  some  ancient  stories,  very 
familiar  to  him,  told  him  with  rich  zest  by  an 
acquaintance.  But  he  could  not  help  speculat- 
ing what  was  the  point  of  it  all.  Some  of  the 
happiest  and  most  contented  men  there  were 
high  ofificials,  engaged  with  a  sense  of  solemn 
importance  in  doing  work  that  could  have 
been  quite  as  well  done  by  very  ordinary  peo- 
ple, and  much  of  which,  indeed,  might  as  well 
have  been  left  undone  altogether.  There  was 
a  bishop  there,  an  old  family  friend  of  Hugh's 
father,  with  whom  he  entered  into  talk.  The 
bishop  had  once  been  a  man  of  great  force  and 
ability,  who  had  been  a  conspicuous  university 
teacher  and  had  written  profound  books.     But 


The  Club  231 

now  he  was  looking  forward  with  a  sense  of 
solemn  satisfaction  to  spending  the  following 
day  in  going  down  to  his  diocese  in  order  to 
preside  at  a  Church  fite,  make  a  humorous 
speech,  and  meet  a  number  of  important  county 
people.  There  was  no  question  of  any  relig- 
ious element  entering  into  the  function,  and 
Hugh  found  himself  dimly  wondering  whether 
such  a  development  of  the  energies  of  Christ- 
ian elders  was  seriously  contemplated  in  the 
Gospel.  But  the  bishop  seemed  to  have  no 
doubts  on  the  subject. 

Well,  anyhow,  this  was  life;  this  was  what 
men  had  to  do,  and  what  as  a  rule  they  enjoyed 
doing.  Hugh  had  no  objection  to  that,  so 
long  as  people  freely  admitted  that  it  was  sim- 
ply their  chosen  diversion,  and  that  they  did  it 
because  they  liked  it.  It  was  only  the  solemn 
parade  of  duty  that  Hugh  disliked. 

One  of  the  friends  whom  Hugh  met  said 
to  him  smilingly  that  he  heard  that  he  had 
become  quite  a  hermit — adding  that  he  must 
confess  that  he  did  not  look  like  one.  Hugh 
replied  laughingly  that  it  was  only  that  he  was 
fortunate  enough  to  discover  that  his  work 
amused  him  more  and  more ;  at  which  his 
friend  smiled  again,  and  told  him  to  beware  of 
eccentricity. 

Hugh  began  to  wonder  whether  his  simple 


232  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  solitary  life  was  indeed  tinged  with  that 
quality;  but  he  answered  that  he  was  finding 
out  to  his  great  delight  that  he  was  less  afraid 
than  he  used  to  be  of  living  alone,  to  which  his 
friend,  a  good-humoured  and  ineffective  man, 
said  that  he  found  that  the  stir  and  movement 
of  town  kept  people  from  rusting.  Hugh  won- 
dered— but  did  not  express  his  wonder — what 
was  supposed  to  be  the  use  of  keeping  the 
blade  bright  to  no  purpose ;  and  he  wished  to 
ask  his  contented  friend  what  his  object  was; 
but  that  appeared  to  be  priggish,  so  Hugh  left 
the  question  unuttered. 

It  was,  however,  with  a  huge  relief,  that 
his  business  over,  Hugh  found  himself  in  the 
homeward  train.  But  at  the  same  time  he 
took  himself  to  task  for  finding  this  suspen- 
sion of  routine,  this  interruption  of  his  literary 
work,  so  unpalatable.  He  realised  that  he  was 
becoming  inconveniently  speculative  ;  and  that 
his  growing  impulse  to  get  behind  things,  to 
weigh  their  value,  to  mistrust  the  conventional 
view  of  life,  had  its  weak  side.  After  all,  the 
conventional,  the  normal  view  reflected  the 
tastes  of  the  majority  of  mankind.  Their  life 
was  laid  out  and  regulated  on  those  lines ;  and 
the  regulating  instinct  was  a  perfectly  natural 
development  of  human  temperament.  Ought 
he  not  to  embrace  it  for  himself  ?  was  he  not, 


The  Garden  of  God  233 

perhaps,  by  seeking  so  diligently  for  fine  fla- 
vours and  intense  impressions,  missing  the  food 
of  the  banquet,  and  sipping  only  at  the  sauces? 
If  his  own  work  had  been  of  any  particular  im- 
portance ;  if  he  was  exercising  a  wide  influence 
through  his  books,  in  the  direction  of  leading 
others  to  love  the  simple  sources  of  happi- 
ness, then  his  withdrawal  from  ordinary  activi- 
ties and  pleasures  would  be  justifiable.  Was 
it  justified  as  it  was?  Hugh  could  not  answer 
the  question.  He  only  knew  that  as  the  train 
glided  on  its  way,  as  the  streets  became  less 
dense,  as  the  country  verdure  began  to  occupy 
more  and  more  of  the  horizon ;  as  the  train 
at  last  began  to  speed  through  wide  fields  full 
of  ripening  grain,  and  hamlets  half  hidden  in 
high  elms,  he  felt  the  blessed  consciousness  of 
returning  freedom,  the  sense  of  recovering  the 
region  of  peace  and  purity  dear  to  his  spirit ; 
and  the  thought  of  the  hot  stifling  town,  with 
all  its  veins  and  arteries  full  of  that  endless  ebb 
and  flow  of  humanity,  seemed  to  him  like  a 
nightmare  from  which  he  was  being  gradually 
delivered,  and  which  he  was  leaving  far  behind 
him. 

It  was  not  peace,  indeed !  there  was  the  ob- 
stinate spirit,  repining,  questioning,  reviewing 
all  things,  striving  to  pierce  the  veil.  But  the 
veil  was  not  so  thick  as  it  had  seemed  in  the 


234  Beside  Still  Waters 

city.  There  he  was  distracted,  bewildered, 
agitated.  But  in  this  quiet  country  the  veil 
seemed  thin  enough.  The  trees,  the  flowers, 
seemed  somehow  nearer  to  God,  who  of  very 
truth  appeared  to  walk  as  of  old  in  the  garden, 
in  the  cool  of  the  day.  .  n 


XXIV 

There  were  some  days  when  the  whole  air 
of  the  place,  the  houses,  the  fields,  the  gardens, 
even  the  very  people  that  Hugh  met  in  the 
streets,  seemed  to  be  full  of  romance  and  poet- 
ry. There  was  no  particular  quality  about  the 
Hays  themselves,  that  Hugh  could  ever  divine, 
that  produced  this  impression.  Perhaps  such 
moods  came  oftener  and  more  poignantly  when 
the  air  was  cool  and  fresh,  when  the  temperate 
sun  filled  his  low  rooms  from  end  to  end,  lay 
serene  upon  the  pastures,  or  danced  in  the  rip- 
ples of  the  stream.  But  the  mood  came  just 
as  inevitably  on  dull  days,  when  the  sky  was 
roofed  with  high  grey  clouds,  or  even  on  raw 
ciays  of  winter,  when  fitful  gusts  whirled  round 
corners,  and  when  the  spouts  and  cornices 
dripped  with  slow  rains.  In  these  hours  the 
whole  world  seemed  possessed  by  some  gracious 
and  sweet  mystery;  everything  was  in  the  se- 
cret, everything  was  included  in  the  eager  and 
high-hearted  conspiracy.  It  was  all  the  same, 
on  such  days,  whether  Hugh  was  alone  or  with 
company;  if  he  was  among  friends  or  even 
235 


236  Beside  Still  Waters 

strangers,  they  seemed  to  look  upon  him,  to 
speak,  to  move,  with  a  bhthe  significance ;  he 
seemed  to  intercept  tender  messages  in  a  casual 
glance,  to  experience  the  sense  of  a  delighted 
good-will,  such  as  reignsamongaparty  of  friends 
on  an  expedition  of  pleasure.  This  mood  did 
not  produce  in  Hugh  the  sense  of  merriment  or 
high  spirits;  it  was  not  an  excited  frame  of 
mind  ;  it  was  rather  a  feeling  of  widespread 
J  tenderness,  a  sort  of  brotherly  admiration.  At 
!  such  moments,  the  most  crabbed  and  peevish 
person  seemed  to  be  transfigured,  to  be  acting 
a  delightful  part  for  the  pleasure  of  a  spectator, 
and  an  inner  benevolence,  a  desire  to  contribute 
zest  and  amusement  to  the  banquet  of  life, 
seemed  to  underlie  the  most  fractious  gestures 
or  irritable  speech.  On  such  days,  one  seemed 
to  have  an  affectionate  understanding  with  even 
slight  acquaintances,  an  understanding  which 
seemed  to  say,  "  We  are  all  comrades  in  heart, 
and  nothing  but  circumstance  and  bodily  limi- 
tation prevents  us  from  being  comrades  in  life." 
Hugh  used  to  fancy  that  this  mood  was  like  an 
earnest  of  the  bodiless  joy,  the  free  companion- 
ship of  heaven,  if  such  a  place  there  were,  where 
one  should  know  even  as  one  was  known,  and 
be  able  to  enter  in  and  possess,  in  a  flash  of 
thought,  the  whole  fabric  of  a  fellow-creature's 
soul. 


The  Romance  of  Life         237 

And  then  if  Hugh  spent  such  a  day  alone,  his 
thoughts  seemed  to  have  the  same  enlighten- 
ing and  invigorating  quality.  He  did  not  fum- 
ble among  dreary  details,  but  saw  swiftly  into 
the  essence  of  things,  so  that  he  smiled  as  he 
sat.  A  book  would,  on  such  occasions,  touch 
into  life  a  whole  train  of  pretty  thoughts,  as  a 
spark  leaps  along  a  scattered  line  of  gunpowder. 
A  few  remembered  lines  of  poetry,  a  few  notes 
played  by  unseen  hands  on  a  musical  instru- 
ment, from  a  window  that  he  passed  in  the 
street,  would  give  a  sense  of  completed  happi- 
ness; so  that  one  said,  "Yes,  it  is  like  that!" 
The  palings  of  gardens,  the  screen  of  shrubs 
through  which  the  pleasance  could  be  dimly 
discerned  within,  the  high  trees  holding  up  their 
branches  to  the  air,  all  half  guarded,  half  revealed 
the  same  jocund  secret.  Here,  by  a  hedgerow, , 
in  a  lane,  Hugh  would  discern  the  beady  eye  of  a 
fat  thrush  which  hopped  in  the  tall  grass,  or 
plied  some  tiny  business  among  the  stems,  lift- 
ing his  head  at  intervals  to  look  briskly  round. 
"  I  see  you!"  said  Hugh,  as  he  used  to  say  long 
ago  to  the  birds  in  the  Rectory  garden,  and  the 
bird  seemed  almost  to  nod  his  head  in  reply. 

And  then,^  ,too,  the  houses  that  he  passed  all 
breathed  the  same  air  of  romance.  There, 
perhaps,  behind  the  wall  or  at  the  open  win- 
dow, sat  or  moved  the  one  friend  of  whom  he 


/ 


238  Beside  Still  Waters 

was  ever  in  search  ;  but  on  these  days  it  mat- 
tered Httle  that  he  had  not  found  him  ;  he 
could  wait,  he  could  be  faithful,  and  Hugh 
could  wait  too,  until  the  day  when  all  things 
should  be  made  new.  I fjie_  walked -,o,n_d ays 
like  these  through  some  college  court,  the 
thought  of  the  happy,  careless,  cheerful  lives, 
lived  there  in  strength  and  brightness,  by  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  merry  young  men,  filled 
Hugh's  heart  with  content ;  he  liked  to  think  that 
all  the  world  over,  in  busy  offices,  in  grave  par- 
lours, in  pleasant  parsonages,  there  were  seri- 
ous, commonplace,  well-occupied  men,  who 
perhaps,  in  a  tiny  flash  of  memory,  sent  back 
a  wistful  thought  to  the  old  walls  and  gables, 
the  towns  with  their  chiming  bells,  and  remem- 
bered tenderly  the  days  of  their  blithe  youth, 
the  old  companions,  the  lively  hours.  The 
whole  world  seemed  knit  together  by  sweet 
and  gentle  ties  :  labour  and  strife  mattered 
little ;  it  was  but  a  cloud  upon  the  path,  and 
would  melt  into  the  sunlit  air  at  last. 

Hugh  used  to  feel  half  amused  at  the  irrepress- 
ible_sense^of  youth  whjch  thrilled  him  still.  As  a 
boy,  he  had  little  suspected  that  the  serious 
elderly  men,  of  settled  habits  and  close-shaved 
chins,  had  any  such  thoughts  as  these  under 
their  battered  exteriors.  He  had  thought  that 
such  persons  were  necessarily  stolid  and  com- 


'  The  Renewal  of  Youth        239 

fortable  persons,  believing  in  committees  and 
correspondence,  fond  of  food  and  drink,  care- 
ful of  their  balance  at  the  bank,  and  rather 
disgusted  at  than  tolerant  of  the  irrepressible 
levity  and  flightiness  of  youth.  Yet  now  that 
he  himself  was  approaching  middle  age,  he  was 
conscious,  not  indeed  of  increased  levity  or 
high  spirits,  but  of  undiminished  vigour,  wider 
sympathy,  larger  joy.  Life  was  not  only  not 
less  interesting,  but  it  seemed  rather  to  thrill 
and  pulsate  with  fresh  and  delightful  emotion. 
If  he  could  not  taste  it  with  the  same  insou- 
ciance, it  was  only  because  he  perceived  its 
quality  more  poignantly.  If  life  were  less  full 
of  laughter,  it  was  only  because  there  were 
sweeter  and  more  joyful  things  to  enjoy.  What 
was  best  of  all  about  this  later  delight,  was 
that  it  left  no  bitter  taste  behind  it ;  in  youth, 
a  day  of  abandonment  to  elation,  a  day  of 
breezy  talk,  hearty  laughter,  active  pleasure, 
would  often  leave  a  sense  of  flatness  and  dis- 
satisfaction behind  it  ;  but  the  later  joy  had  no 
sort  of  weariness  as  its  shadow  ;  it  left  one 
invigorated  and  hopeful. 

The  most  marked  difference  of  all  was  in 
one's  relations  with  others.  In  youth  a  new 
friendship  had  been  a  kind  of  excited  capture ; 
it  had  been  shadowed  by  jealousy  ;  it  had  been 
a  desire  for  possession.    One  had  not  been  con- 


240  Beside  Still  Waters 

tent  unless  one  had  been  sure  that  one's  friend 
had  the  same  sort  of  unique  regard  that  one 
experienced  one's  self.  One  had  resented  his 
other  friendships,  and  wished  to  supersede  them. 
But  now  Hugh  had  no  such  feeling.  He  had 
no  desire  to  make  a  relationship,  because  the 
relationship  seemed  already  there.  If  one  met 
a  sympathetic  and  congenial  person,  one  made, 
as  it  were,  a  sort  of  sunlit  excursion  in  a  new 
and  pleasing  country.  One  admired  the  pro- 
spects, surveyed  the  contours.  In  old  days,  one 
had  desired  to  establish  a  kind  of  fortress  in 
the  centre,  and  claim  the  fruitful  land  for  one's 
own. 

Of  course,  in  Hugh's  dealings  with  the  youth- 
ful persons  whom  he  encountered  in  his  Cam- 
bridge life,  he  became  aware  of  the  existence 
of  the  subtle  barrier  which  is  erected  between 
youth  and  middle  age ;  he  was  conscious  often 
that  the  delightful  egotism  of  youth  has,  as  a 
.rule,  very  little  deference  for,  or  interest  in,  the 
opinions  of  older  persons.  Youth  is  so  pro- 
foundly absorbed  in  its  own  visions,  that  it  is 
very  rarely  curious  about  the  duller  reveries  of 
older  people.  It  regards  them  as  necessarily 
dreary,  grey,  wise,  and  prudent.  The  only 
thing  it  values  is  sympathy  for  itself,  just  as  a 
child  is  far  more  interested  in  the  few  chords 
which  it  can  strum  on  a  piano  than  in  the  rich- 


Youth  241 

est  performance  of  a  maestro.  But  Hugh  did 
not  find  this  to  be  disagreeable,  because  he  was 
less  and  less  concerned  about  the  effect  he  pro- 
duced. He  had  found  out  that  the  joys  of  per- 
ception are  at  least  equal  to  the  joys  of  expres- 
sion. Youth  cannot  wait,  it  must  utter  its 
half-formed  wishes,  put  out  its  crude  fruits  ;  and 
it  used  to  seem  to  Hugh  that  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  and  beautiful  things  in  the  world  was 
the  intensity  of  feeling,  the  limitless  dreams,  that 
rose  shadowily  in  a  boy's  mind  side  by  side 
with  the  inarticulateness,  the  failure  to  com- 
mand any  medium  of  expression.  One  of  the 
reasons  why  the  young  and  clever  men  are  so 
desperately  anxious  to  be  amusing  and  hu- 
morous, is  because  they  desire  above  all  things 
to  see  the  effect  of  their  words,  and  long  to 
convulse  an  audience  ;  while  they  lack,  as  a  rule, 
the  finished  economy  in  which  humour,  to  be 
effective,  must  be  clothed. 

But,  after  all,  what  brought  Hugh  the  best 
comfort,  was  the  discovery  that  advancing  years 
did  not  bring  with  them  any  lack  of  sensitive- 
ness, any  dreariness,  any  sense  of  dulness.  It 
was  indeed  rather  the  reverse.  The  whole  fa- 
bric of  life  was  richer,  more  impassioned,  more 
desirable  than  he  had  ever  supposed.  In  youth, 
emotion  and  feeling  had  seemed  to  him  like 
oases  in  a  desert,  oases  which  one  had  to  quit, 


242  Beside  Still  Waters 

when  one  crossed  the  threshold  of  life,  to  plod 
wearily  among  endless  sands.  But  now  he  had 
foundjthat.  the  desert  had  a  life,  an  emotion,  a 
beauty  of  its  own,  and  the  oases  of  youthful 
fancy  seemed  to  be  tame  and  limited  by  com- 
parison. Hugh  still  thought  with  a  shudder  of 
old^agCj  which  lay  ahead  of  him  ;  but  even  as 
he  shuddered,  he  began  to  wonder  whether  that 
too  would  not  open  up  to  him  a  whole  range  of 
experiences  and  emotions,  of  which  to-day  he 
had  no  inkling  at  all.  Would  life  perhaps  seem 
richer  still  ?  That  was  what  he  dared  to  hope. 
Meanwhile  he  would  neither  linger  nor  make 
haste :  he  would  not  catch  at  the  past  as  con- 
taining a  lost  and  faded  sweetness ;  neither 
would  he  anticipate,  so  far  as  he  could  help  it, 
the  closing  of  the  windows  of  the  soul.  J 


(  ^' 


XXV 

One  morning  when  he  was  sitting  in  his 
rooms  at  Cambridge,  Hugh  heard  a  knock  at 
the  door ;  there  presently  entered  a  clergyman, 
whom  at  first  sight  Hugh  thought  to  be  a 
stranger,  but  whom  he  almost  immediately  re- 
cognised  as  an  old  school-fellow,  called  Ralph 
Maitland,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  more  than 
twenty  years.  Maitland  had  been  an  idle,  good- 
humoured  boy,  full  of  ideas,  a  great  reader  and 
a  voluble  talker.  Hugh  had  never  known  him 
particularly  well ;  but  he  remembered  to  have 
heard  that  Maitland  had  fallen  under  religious 
impulses  at  Oxford,  had  become  serious,  had 
been  ordained,  and  had  eventually  become  a 
devoted  and  hard-working  clergyman  in  a  north- 
ern manufacturing  town.  He  had  been  lately 
threatened  with  a  break-down  in  health,  and 
had  been  ordered  abroad ;  he  had  come  to 
Cambridge  to  see  some  friends,  and  hearing 
that  Hugh  was  in  residence  there,  had  called 
upon  him.  Hugh  was  very  much  interested  to 
see  him,  and  gradually  began  to  discern  the 
243 


244  Beside  Still  Waters 

smooth-faced  boy  he  had  known,  under  the 
worn  and  hard-featured  mask  of  the  priest. 
They  spent  most  of  that  day  together,  and 
went  out  for  a  long  walk.  Hugh  thought  he 
perceived  a  touch  of  fanaticism  about  Maitland, 
who  found  it  difficult  to  talk  except  on  matters 
connected  with  his  parish.  But  eventually  he 
began  to  talk  of  the  religious  life,  and  Hugh 
gradually  perceived  that  Maitland  held  a  very 
ardent  and  almost  fierce  view  of  the  priestly 
vocation;  he  drew  a  picture  of  the  jo^s  of 
mortification  and  self-denial  which  impressed 
Hugh,  partly  because  of  its  interisity,  and  partly 
also  from  an  uneasy  sense  of  strain  and  self- 
consciousness  which  it  gave  him.  Maitland's 
idea  seemed  to  be  that  all  impulses,  except  the 
religious  impulse  in  its  narrowest  sense,  needed 
to  be  sternly  repressed ;  that  the  highest  life 
was  a  severe  detachment  from  all  earthly 
thjngs ;  that  the  Christian  pilgrim  marched 
along  a  very  narrow  way,  bristling  with  pitfalls 
both  of  opinion  and  practice ;  that  the  way  was 
defined,  hazily  by  Scripture,  and  precisely  by 
the  Church,  along  which  the  believer  must  ad- 
vance ;  "  Few  there  be  that  find  it !  "  said  Mait- 
land, with  a  kind  of  menacing  joy.  He  was  full 
of  the  errors  of  other  sects  and  communions. 
The  Roman  doctrine  was  over-developed,  not 
primitive  enough;  the  Protestant  Non-Conform- 


A  Narrow  Path  245 

ists  were  neglectful  of  ecclesiastical  ordinances. 
The  only  people,  it  seemed,  who  were  in  the 
right  path  were  a  small  band  of  ratjtier  rigid 
Anglicans,  who  appeared  to  Maitland  to  be 
the  precise  type  of  humanity  that  Christ  had 
desired  to  develop. 

As  he  spoke,  his  eye  became  bright,  his  lip 
intolerant,  and  Hugh  was  haunted  by  the  text, 
"  The  zeal  of  Thine  house  hath  even  eaten 
me."  Maitland  seemed  to  be  literally  devoured 
by  an  idea,  which  like  the  fox  in  the  old  story 
of  the  Spartan  boy,  appeared  to  prey  on  his 
vitals.  Hugh  became  gradually  nettled  by  the 
argument,  but  he  was  no  match  for  Maitland 
in  scholastic  disputation.  Maitland  felled  his 
arguments  with  an  armoury  of  texts,  which  he 
used  like  cudgels.  Hugh  at  last  said  that  what 
he  thought  was  the  weak  point  in  Maitland's 
argument  was  this — that  in  ^ery  sect  and 
every  church  there  were  certainly  people  who 

held  with  the  same  inflexible  determination  to  1 

.    .  I 

the   belief  that   they  were   absolutely  in    the  i 
ciglit,  and  had  unique  possession  of  the  exact ' 
faith  delivered  to  the  saints ;  and  that  each  of  I 
these  persons  would  be  able  to  justify  them- 
selves by  a  rigid  application  of  texts.     Hugh 
said  that  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  practically  cer- 
tain that  rio_o^ne_o^[_tliejiiJvvas.iafallibly  inXhe 
right,  and  that  the  truth  probably  lay  in  certain 


y 


246  Beside  Still  Waters 

wide  religious  ideas  which  underlay  all  forms 
of  Christian  faith.  Maitland  rejected  this  with 
scorn  as  a  dangerous  and  nebulous  kind  of 
religion — "  nerveless  and  flabby,  without  bone 
or  sinew."  They  then  diverged  on  to  a  wider 
ground,  and  Hugh  tried  to  defend  his  theory 
that  God  called  souls  to  Himself  by  an  infinite 
variety  of  appeal,  anH  that  the  contest  was  not 
between  orthodoxy  on  the  one  hand  and 
heterodoxy  on  the  other,  but  between  pure 
and  unselfish  emotion  on  the  one  hand  and  hard 
and  self-centred  materialism  on  the  other.  To 
this  Maitland  replied  by  saying  that  such  vague- 
ness was  one  of  the  darkest  temptations  that 
beset  cultured  and  intellectual  people,  and  that 
the  duty  of  a  Christian  was  to  follow  precise 
and  accurate  religious  truth,  as  revealed  in 
Scripture  and  interpreted  by  the  Church,  how- 
ever much  reason  and  indolence  revolted  from 
the  conclusions  he  was  forced  to  draw.  They 
parted,  however,  in  a  very  friendly  way,  and 
pledged  themselves  to  meet  again  and  continue 
their  discussion  on  Maitland's  return. 

A  few  days  afterwards  Hugh  was  surprised 
to  receive  a  letter  from  Maitland  from  Paris 
which  ran  as  follows : 

"My  DEAR  Ne  ville, — //  was  a  great  pleasure 
to  see  you  and  to  revive  the  memories  of  old  days. 


A  Letter  247 

/  have  thought  a  good  deal  over  our  conversation 
and  have  made  up  my  mind  that  I  ought  to  zvrite 
to  you.  But  first  let  me  ask  your  pardon,  if  in 
the  heat  of  argument  I  allowed  my  zeal  to  outrun 
my  courtesy.  I  was  over-tired  and  over-strained,  \/ 
and  in  the  mood  when  any  opposition  to  one' s  own 
cherished  ideals  is  deeply  and  perhaps  unreason- 
ably distressing. 

"  You  seemed  to  me — I  will  freely  grant  this — 
to  be  a  real  and  candid  seeker  after  truth  ;  but 
the  sheltered  and  easy  life  that  you  have  led  dis-  \ 
guises  from  you  the  urgency  of  the  struggle.     If  ' 
you  had  wrestled  as  I  have  for  years  with  infi- 
delity and  wickedness,  and  had  seen,  as  I  have   \ 
a  thousand  times,  how  any  laxity  of  doctrinal    \ 
opinion  is  always  visited  upon  its  victim  by  a    \ 
correspondiftg  laxity  of  moral  action,  you  would    ' 
feel  very  differently. 

"  /  think  you  are  treading  a  very  dangerous 
path.  To  me  it  is  clear  that  our  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour Jesus  Christ  in  His  recorded  utterances,  in 
a  world  of  incredible  wickedness  and  vague  specu- 
lation, deliberately  narrowed  the  issues  of  life  and 
death.  He  originated  a  society,  to  which  He  \ 
promised  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit,  and  woe  to 
the  man  who  tries  to  find  a  religion  outside  of 
that  Church. 

"  You  seem  to  me,  if  you  will  forgive  the  ex- 
pression, to  be  more  than  half  a  Pagan ;  to  put 


248  Beside  Still  Waters 

Christianity  on  a  level — though  you  allow  it  a 
certain  pre-eminence — with  other  refining  influ- 
ences. You  spoke  of  art  and  poetry  as  if  they 
could  bring  men  to  God^  and  that  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that,  as  I  reminded  you,  there  is  not  a  syllable 
in  our  Lord^s  words  that  could  be  construed  into 
the  least  sympathy  with  art  or  poetry  at  all.  You 
called  yourself  a  Christian,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  you  sincerely  believe  yourself  to  be  one  ;  but 
to  tne  you  seemed  to  be  '>nore  like  one  of  those  cul- 
tured Greeks  who  gave  St.  Paul  an  interested 
hearing  on  the  A  cropolis.  A  nd  yet  you  seemed  to 
me  so  genuinely  anxious  to  do  what  was  right, 
that  I  am  going  to  ask  you,  faithfully  and  sin- 
cerely, to  reconsider  your  position.  You  are 
K.  drifting  into  a  kind  of  vague  and  epicurean  op- 
A  timism.  You  spoke  of  the  message  of  God  through 
nature  ;  there  is  no  direct  message  through  that 
channel,  it  is  only  symbolical  of  the  inner  divine 
processes. 

"  /  am  not  going  to  argue  with  you  ;  but  I  im- 
plore you  to  give  some  time  to  a  careful  study  of 
the  New  Testament  and  the  Fathers.  I  feel  sure 
that  light  will  be  sent  you.  Pray  earnestly  for  it, 
if  you  have  not,  as  I  more  than  half  suspect,  given 
^P^Z&M^-i.^  f^'vour  of  a  vague  aspiration.  A  nd 
be  sure  of  this,  that  I  shall  not  forget  you  in  my 
own  prayers.  I  shall  offer^he  Holy  Sacrifice  in 
your  intention  ;  I  shall  make  humble  intercession 


A  Letter  249 

for  you,  for  you  seem  to  me  to  be  so  near  the  truth 
and  yet  so  far  away.  Forgive  my  writing  thus^ 
but  I  feel  called  upon  to  warn  you  of  what  is 
painfully  clear  to  me. — Believe  me,  ever  sincerely 

yours, 

'-'Ralph  Maitland" 

This  letter  touched  Hugh  very  much  with  a 
kind  of  melancholy  pathos.  He  contented  him- 
self with  writing  back  that  he  did  indeed,  he 
believed,  desire  to  see  the  truth,  and  that  he 
deeply  appreciated  Maitland's  sympathy  and 
interest. 

**  No  impulse  of  the  heart,  on  behalf  of  anoth- 
er, is  ever  thrown  away,  I  am  sure  of  that. 
But  you  would  be  the  first  to  confess,  I  know, 
that  a  man  must  advance  by  whatever  light  he 
has  ;  that  no  good  can  come  of  accepting  the  con- 
clusions of  another,  if  the  heart  and  mind  do  not 
sincerely  assent ;  and  that  if  I  differ  from  your- 
self as  to  the  precise  degree  of  certainty  attain- 
able in  religious  matters^  it  is  not  because  I 
despise  the  Spirit,  but  because  I  think  that  I  dis- 
cern a  wider  influence  than  you  can  admit.  ^' 

He  received  in  reply  a  short  note  to  say  that 
Maitland  felt  that  Hugh  was  making  the  mis- 
take  of  trusting  more  to  reason  than  to  divine 


X 


2  so  Beside  Still  Waters 

guidance,  but  adding  that  he  would  not  cease 
to  pray  for  him  day  by  day. 

Hugh  reflected  long  and  seriously  over  this 
strange  episode ;  but  he  did  not  experience  the 
smallest  temptation  to  desert  a  rational  process 
of  inquiry.  He  read  the  Gospels  again,  and 
they  seemed  to~confirm  him  in  his  VelTef  that 
ajwijie^arui  simple  view  life  was  there  indicat- 
ed.  He  seemed  to  see  that  the  spirit  which 
Christ  inculcated  was  a  kind  of  mystical  up- 
lifting of  the  heart  to  God,  not  a  doctrinal  ap- 
prehension of  His  nature.  It  seemed  indeed  to 
him  that  Christ's  treatment  of  life  was  pro- 
foundly poetical,  that  it  tended  to  point  men  to 
the  aim  of  discerning  a  beautiful  quality  in 
action  and  life.  Those  delicate  and  moving 
stories  that  He  told — how  little  they  dealt  with 
sacramental  processes  or  ecclesiastical  systems  ? 
They  rather  expressed  a  vivid  and  ardent  in- 
terest in  the  simplest  emotions  of  life.  They 
taught  one  to  be  humble,  forgiving,  sincere, 
hones^^flecti^nate ;  there  was,  it  was  true,  an 
absence  of  intellectual  and  artistic  appeal  in 
them,  though  there  were  parables,  like  the  par- 
able of  the  talents,  which  seemed  to  point  to  the 
duty  of  exercising  faithfully  a  diversity  of  gifts  ; 
but  it  was  not,  Hugh  thought,  due  to  a  want 
of  sympathy  with  the  things  of  the  mind,  but 
seemed  to  arise  from  an  intense  and  burning 


Asceticism  251 

desire  to  prove  that  the  secret  lay  rather  in 
one's  relations  to  humanity,  and  even  to 
nature,  than  in  one's  intellectual  processes  and 
conceptions. 

And  then  as  to  the  point  that  Christ^njorced 
upon  men  a  fierce  ideal  of  mortification  and 
selWenial,  Hugh  could  see  no  trace  of  it. 
Christ  did  not  turn  His  back  upon  the  world ; 
He  loved  to  enjoy  beautiful  sights  and  sounds, 
such  as  birds  and  flowers.  He  did  indeed  clear- 
ly assert  that  one  must  not  be  at  the  mercy  of 
material  conditions,  and  that  it  was  the 
privilege  of  man  to  live  along  the  things  of  the 
soul.  It  was  the  path  of  simplicity,  not  the 
gatli_of,.as££ticisjp,  that  was  indicated.  Christ 
seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  entirely  preoccupied 
with  one  idea — that  love  was  the  strongest  and 
most  beautiful  thing  in  the  world  ;  and  that  if 
one  recognised  that  love  alone  could  be 
victorious  over  evil  and  pain  and  death,  one 
might  be  certain  that  its  source  and  origin  lay 
deepest  of  all  in  the  vast  heart  of  God,  however 
sadly  and  strangely  that  seemed  to  be  contra- 
dicted by  actual  experience.  And  so  Hugh 
felt  that  whatever  befell  him,  he  would  not  be 
persuaded  to  desert  the  broad  highway  of  love 
and  beauty  and  truth,  for  the  narrow  and  mud- 
dy alley  of  ecclesiastical  opinion.  The  kingdom 
of  God  seemed  to  him  to  have  suffered  more 


^ 


252  Beside  Still  Waters 

disastrous  violence  from  the  hands  of  bigoted 
ecclesiastics  than  it  had  ever  suffered  from  the 
onslaughts  of  the  world.  Ecclesiastics  polluted 
the  crystal  stream  at  its  very  source  by  confin- 
ing the  river  of  life  to  a  small  and  crooked 
channel.  Hugh  prayed  with  all  his  heart  that 
he  might  escape  from  any  system  that  led  him 
to  judge  others  harshly,  to  condemn  their  beliefs, 
to  define  their  errors.  That  seemed  to  him  to 
be  the  one  spirit  against  which  the  Saviour  had 
uttered  denunciations  of  an  almost  appalling 
sternness.  The  Lqrd/s  ^JEcayer  and  not  the 
Athajiasiaix_Clsed  seemed  to  him  to  sum  up  the 
essential  spirit  of  Christ.  He  believed  himself 
to  be  following  the  will  of  God  in  yielding  to 
every  emotional  impulse  that  made  life  more 
sacred,  more  beautiful,  more  tender,  more  hope- 
ful. He  believed  himself,  no  less  sincerely,  to 
be  slighting  and  despising  the  tender  love  of 
God  for  all  the  sheep  of  His  hand,  when  he 
made  religion  into  either  a  subtle  and  meta- 
physical thing  on  the  one  hand,  or  a  conven- 
tional and  ceremonious  business  on  the  other. 
The  peace  that  the  world  cannot  give — how 
desirable,  how  remote  that  seemed!  How  large 
and  free  a  quality  it  was!  But  the  peace 
promised  him  by  his  friend  seemed  to  him  the 
apathy  of  a  soul  crushed  and  confined  in  the 
narrowest  of  dungeons,  and  denying  the  exist- 


The  Narrow  Soul  253 

ence  of  the  free  air  and  the  sun  because  of  the 
streaming  walls  and  shapen  stones  which 
hemmed  it  round.  /        ^,  cxCX-' 


XXVI 

Hugh  went  once  to  spend  a  few  days  with 
an  old  friend  who  had  held  an  important 
Uving  in  a  big  country  town.  It  was  a  somewhat 
bewildering  experience.  His  friend  was  what 
would  be  called  a  practical  person  and  loved 
organisation — the  word  was  often  on  his  lips — 
with  a  consuming  passion.  Hugh  saw  that  he 
was  a  very  happy  man  ;  he  was  a  big  fellow, 
with  a  sanguine  complexion  and  a  resonant 
voice.  He  was  always  in  high  spirits:  he 
banged  doors  behind  him,  and  when  he  hurried 
upstairs,  the  whole  house  seemed  to  shake. 
Every  moment  of  his  day  was  full  to  the  brim 
of  occupation.  He  could  be  heard  shouting 
directions  in  the  garden  and  stables  at  ait  early 
hour ;  he  received  and  wrote  a  great  many  let- 
ters ;  he  attended  many  committees  and  meet- 
ings. He  hurried  about  the  country,  he  made 
speeches,  he  preached.  Hugh  heard  one  of  his 
sermons.which  was  delivered  with  abundant  gen- 
iality. It  consisted  of  a  somewhat  obvious  para- 
phrase of  a  Scripture  scene — the  slaughter  of 
254 


Activity  255 

the  prophets  of  Baal  by  Elijah.  The  preacher 
described  the  ugly  carnage  with  much  gusto.  He 
then  invited  his  hearers  to  stamp  out  evil  with 
similar  vigour,  and  ended  with  drawing  a  high- 
ly optimistic  picture  of  the  world,  representing 
evil  and  sin  as  a  kind  of  skulking  and  lingering 
contagion,  which  God  was  doing  His  best  to  get 
rid  of,  and  which  was  indeed  only  kept  alive 
by  the  foolish  perversity  of  a  few  abandoned 
persons,  and  would  soon  be  extirpated  alto- 
gether if  only  enough  committees  would  meet 
and  take  the  thing  up  in  a  businesslike  way.  It 
was  in  a  sense  a  vigorous  performance,  and 
Hugh  thought  that  though  there  was  little 
attempt  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  yet  he 
could  conceive  its  having  an  inspiriting  effect 
on  people  who  felt  themselves  on  the  right 
side. 

His  friend  found  time  one  evening,  as  they 
sat  smoking  together,  to  inquire  into  Hugh's 
occupations,  and  read  him  a  friendly  lecture 
on  the  subject  of  making  himself  more  useful. 
Hugh  felt  that  it  was  useless  to  argue  the 
question  ;  but  when  he  came  away,  somewhat 
dizzied  and  wearied  by  the  tumultuous  energy 
of  his  friend's  life,  he  found  himself  wondering 
exactly  how  much  resulted  from  this  buzzing 
and  humming  organisation.  There  was  not  a 
marked  difference  between  his  friend's  parish 


256  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  other  parishes,  except  that  there  were 
certainly  more  meetings.  Hugh  had  indeed 
an  uneasy  sense  that  a  man  with  less  taste 
for  organisation,  and  more  leisure  for  pastoral 
^  intercourse  with  his  flock,  might  have  effected 
more.  The  vicar's  chief  concern  indeed  seemed 
to  be  with  the  prosperous  and  healthy  mem- 
bers of  his  parish  ;  if  there  was  a  case  of  desti- 
tution, of  illness,  of  sorrow,  it  was  certainly 
*  inquired  into  ;  some  hard-featured  lady,  with  a 
strong  sense  of  rectitude  and  usefulness,  would 
be  commissioned  to  go  and  look  into  the 
matter.  She  generally  returned  saying  cheer- 
fully that  she  had  put  things  straight,  and  that 
it  turned  out  to  be  their  own  fault. 

But  Hugh  found  his  reflections  taking  a  still 

more  sceptical  turn.      The  vicar's  theory  was 

that  we  were  all  put  into  the  world  to  be  of  use 

to  other  people.     But  his  idea  of  helping  other 

[i  people  was  not  to   help   them  to  what  they 

Vf^desired,  but  to  what  he  thought  it  was  right 

that  they  should  desire.     He  had  very  little 

compassion,  Hugh  saw,,  for  failure  and  error. 

If   a    parishioner   was    in    trouble,    the  vicar 

tended  to  say  he  had  no  one   to    blame    but 

himself  for    it.     Hugh   felt   that   he    did    not 

wish  to  be  in  his  friend's  parish.     If  one  was 

.    able-bodied  and  sensible,    one  was    put  on    a 

committee  or  two ;  if  one  was  unfortunate  or 


Work  257 

obscure,  one  was  invaded  by  a  district  visitor. 
If  one  was  a  Dissenter,  one  would  be  treated 
with  a  gloomy  courtesy — for  the  vicar  was 
great  on  not  alienating  Dissenters,  but  bringing 
them  in,  as  he  phrased  it ;  and  if  a  Dissenter 
became  an  Anglican,  the  vicar  rejoiced  with 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  joy  of  the  angels 
over  a  repentant  sinner,  and  made  him  a  parish 
worker  at  once. 

Then  Hugh  went  further  and  deeper,  and 
tried  to  ascertain  what  he  really  felt  on  the 
subject  of  usefulness.  Tracing  back  the  con- 
stitution of  society  to  its  origin,  he  saw  that  it 
was  clear  that  every  one  owed  a  certain  duty 
of  work  to  the  community.  A  society  could 
not  exist  in  idleness ;  and  every  one  who  was 
capable  of  work  must  work  to  support  himself; 
and  then  a  certain  amount  of  work  must  be 
done  by  the  able-bodied  to  support  those  who 
were  either  too  old  or  too  young  to  support 
themselves.  But  the  labouring  class,  the  pro- 
ducers, were  forced  by  the  constitution  of 
things  to  work  even  more  than  that;  because 
there  were  a  certain  number  of  persons  in  the 
community,  capitalists  and  leisurely  people, 
who  lived  in  idleness  on  the  labour  of  the 
workers. 

He  put  aside  the  great  majority  of  simple 
workers,  the  labouring  classes,  because  there 


*    258  Beside  Still  Waters 

was  no  doubt  about  their  position.  If  a  man 
did  his  work  honestly,  and  supported  himself 
and  his  family,  living  virtuously,  and  endeav- 
ouring to  bring  up  his  children  virtuously,  that 
was  a  fine  simple  life.  Then  came  the  profes- 
sional classes,  who  were  necessary  too,  doctors, 
lawyers,  priests,  soldiers,  sailors,  merchants, 
even  writers  and  artists;  all  of  them  had  a 
work  to  do*  in  the  world. 

This  then  seemed  the  law  of  one's  being: 
that  men  were  put  into  the  world,  and  the  one 
thing  that  was  clear  was  that  they  were  meant 
to  work ;  did  duty  stop  there  ?  had  a  man, 
when  his  work  was  done,  a  right  to  amuse  and 
employ  himself  as  he  liked,  so  long  as  he  did 
not  interfere  with  or  annoy  other  people?  or 
had  he  an  imperative  duty  laid  upon  him  to 
devote  his  energies,  if  any  were  left,  to  helping 
other  people  ? 

What  in  fact  was  the  obscure  purpose  for 
which  people  were  sent  into  the  world  ?  It 
was  a  pleasant  place  on  the  whole  for  healthy 
persons,  but  there  was  still  a  large  number  of 
individuals  to  whom  it  was  by  no  means  a 
pleasant  place.  No  choice  was  given  us,  so 
far  as  we  knew,  as  to  whether  we  would  enter 
the  world  or  not,  nor  about  the  circumstances 
which  were  to  surround  us.  Our  lives  indeed 
were  strangely  conditioned  by  an  abundance 


A  Theory  of  Life  259 

of  causes  which  lay  entirely  outside  our  con- 
trol, such  as  heredity,  temperament,  environ- 
ment. One  supposed  one's  self  to  be  free,  but 
in  reality  one  was  intolerably  hampered  and 
bound. 

The  onl^^lhej^rj^  that  could  satisfactorily 
account  for  life  as  we  found  it  was,  that  either 
it  was  an  educational  progress,  and  that  we 
were  being  prepared  for  some  further  exist- 
ence, for  which  in  some  mysterious  way  our 
experience,  however  mean,  miserable,  and  un- 
gentle must  be  intended  to  fit  us ;  or  else  it 
was  all  a  hopeless  mystery,  the  work  of  some 
prodigious  power  who  neither  loved  or  hated, 
but  just  chose  to  act  so.  In  any  case  it  was  a 
very  slow  process ;  the  world  was  bound  with 
innumerable  heavy  chains.  There  was  much 
cruelty,  stupidity,  selfishness,  meanness  abroad  ; 
all  those  ugly  things  decreased  very  slowly, 
if  indeed  they  decreased  at  all.  Yet  there 
seemed,  too,  to  be  a  species  of  development  at 
work.  But  the  rea.1.  mysj^y  lay  in  ^he  Jact 
that  while  our  hopes  and  intuitions  pointed  to 
there  being  a  great  and  glorious  scheme  in  the 
background,  our  reason  and  experience  alike 
tended  to  contradict  that  hope.  How  Httle 
one  changed  as  the^years  .\^nt  on!  Ho\v_in-^ 
eradLcable  our  faylts  seemed  !  How  ineffectual 
ou£  efforts!     God  indeed  seemed  to  implant 


26o  Beside  Still  Waters 

in  us  a  wish  to  improve,  and  then  very  often 
seemed  steadily  and  deliberately  to  thwart 
that  wish. 

And  then,  too,  how  difficult  it  seemed  really 
to  draw  near  to  other  people  ;  in  what  a  terrible 
i.gQlation.iXD.e's  life  wasL-gpent ;  even  in  the  midst 
of  a  cheerful  and  merry  company,  how  the 
secrets  of  one's  heart  hung  like  an  invisible 
veil  between  us  and  our  dearest  and  nearest. 
The  most  one  could  hope  for  was  to  be  a 
pleasant  and  kindly  influence  in  the  lives  of 
other  people,  and,  when  one  was  gone,  one 
might  live  a  little  while  in  their  memories. 
The  fact  that  some  few  healthily  organised 
people  contrived  to  live  simply  and  straight- 
forwardly in  the  activities  of  the  moment, 
without  questioning  or  speculating  on  the 
causes  of  things,  did  not  make  things  simpler 
for  those  on  whom  these  questions  hourly 
and  daily  pressed.  The  people  whom  one 
accounted  best,  did  indeed  spend  their  time  in 
helping  the  happiness  of  others  ;  but  did  one 
perhaps  only  tend  to  think  them  so,  because 
they  ministered  to  one's  own  contentment  ? 

The  only  conclusion  for  Hugh  seemed  to  be 
this:  that  one  must  have  a  work  to  be  faithfully 
and  resolutely  fulfilled  ;  and  that,  outside  of 
that,  one  must  live  tenderly,  simply,  and  kindly, 
adding  so  far  as  one  might  to  the  happiness  of 


A  Conclusion  261 

others ;  and  that  one  might  resolutely  eschew 
all  the  busy  multiplication  of  activities,  which 
produced  such  scanty  results,  and  were  indeed 
mainly  originated  in  order  that  so-called  active         i 
people  might  feel  jhemselves  to  be  righteously    "^ 
employed.  J  r'-^*^ 


XXVII 

One  hot  still  summer  day  Hugh  went  far 
afield,  and  struck  into  a  little  piece  of  country 
that  was  new  to  him.  He  seemed  to  discern 
from  the  map  that  it  must  have  once  been  a 
large,  low  island  almost  entirely  surrounded  by 
marshes ;  and  this  turned  out  to  be  the  case.  It 
was  approached  along  a  high  causeway  crossing 
the  fen,  with  rich  black  land  on  either  hand. 
No  high-road  led  through  or  out  of  the  village, 
nothing  but  grass-tracks  and  drift-ways.  The 
place  consisted  of  a  small  hamlet,  with  an  old 
church  and  two  or  three  farmhouses  of  some 
size  and  antiquity ;  it  was  all  finely  timbered 
with  an  abundance  of  ancient  elm-trees  every- 
where ;  they  stood  that  afternoon  absolutely 
still  and  motionless,  with  the  sun  hot  on  their 
towering  heads ;  and  Hugh  remembered  how, 
long  ago,  as  a  boy  at  school,  he  used  to  watch, 
out  of  the  windows  of  a  stuffy  class-room,  the 
great  elms  of  the  school  close  rising  just  thus 
in  the  warm  summer  air,  while  his  thoughts 
wandered  from  the  dull  lesson  into  a  region 
262 


The  Golden  Hour  263 

of  delighted,  irrecoverable  reverie.  To-day  he 
sat  for  a  long  time  in  the  little  churchyard,  the 
bees  humming  about  the  limes  with  a  soft  mu- 
sical note,  that  rose  and  fell  with  a  lazy  cadence, 
while  doves  hidden  somewhere  in  the  elms  lent 
as  it  were  a  voice  to  the  trees.  That  soft  note 
seemed  to  brim  over  from  a  spring  of  measure- 
less content ;  it  seemed  like  the  calling  of  the 
spirit  of  summer,  brooding  in  indolent  joy  and 
innocent  satisfaction  over  the  long  sweet  hours 
of  sunshine,  while  the  day  stood  still  to  listen. 
Hugh  resigned  himself  luxuriously  to  the  soft 
influences  of  the  place,  and  felt  that  for  a  short 
space  he  need  neither  look  backwards  nor  for- 
wards, but  simply  float  with  the  golden  hour. 

At  last  he  bestirred  himself,  realising  that  he 
had  yet  far  to  go.  It  was  now  cold  and  fresh, 
and  the  shadows  of  the  trees  lay  long  across  the 
grass.  Hugh  struck  down  on  the  fen  and 
walked  for  a  long  time  in  the  solitary  fields, 
by  a  dyke,  passing  a  big  ancient  farm  that  lay 
very  peacefully  among  its  wide  pastures. 

The  thought  of  the  happy,  quiet-minded 
people  that  might  be  living  there,  leading  their 
simple  lives,  so  little  affected  by  the  current  of 
the  world,  brought  much  peace  into  Hugh's 
mind.  It  seemed  to  him  a  very  beautiful  thing, 
with  something  ancient  and  tranquil  about  it. 
It  was  all  utterly  remote  from  ambition  and 


264  Beside  Still  Waters 

adventure,  and  even  from  intellectual  efficiency ; 
and  here  Hugh  felt  himself  in  a  dilemma.    His 

/faith  djd4uxtperjaitJ^ngLXQ-4.oHJ^t.^^  ^^^  ^^^' 
ilisation  and  development  of  the  world  were  in 
accordance  with  the  purpose  of  God  on  the 
one  hand,  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  that  ex- 
pansion brought  with  it  social  conditions  and 
problems  that  appeared  to  him  of  an  essentjally 
ugly  kind,  as  the  herding  of  human  beings  into 
cities,  the  din  and  dirt  of  factories,  the  millions 
of  lives  that  were  lived  under  almost  servile 
conditions ;  and  so  much  of  that  sad  labour 
was  directed  to  wrong  ends,  to  aggrandisement, 
to  personal  luxury,  to  increasing  the  comfort 
of  oligarchies.  The  simple  life  of  the  country- 
side seemed  a  better  ideal,  and  yet  the  lot  of 
the  rustic  day-labourer  was  both  dull  and  hard. 
It  looked  sweet  enough  on  a  day  of  high  sum- 
mer, such  as  this,  when  a  man  need  ask  for 
nothing  better  than  to  be  taken  and  kept 
out  of  doors ;  but  the  thought  of  the  farm- 
hand rising  in  a  cheerless  wintry  dawn,  putting 
on  his  foul  and  stiffened  habiliments,  setting 
out  in  a  chilly  drizzle  to  uproot  a  turnip  field, 
row  by  row,  with  no  one  to  talk  to  and  nothing 
to  look  forward  to  but  an  evening  in  a  tiny  cot- 
tage-kitchen, full  of  noisy  children — no  one 
could  say  that  this  was  an  ideal  life,  and  he  did 
not  wonder  that  the  young  men  flocked  to  the 


Country  Life  265 

towns,  where  there  was  at  all  events  some  stir, 
some  amusement.  That  was  the  dark  side  of 
popular  education,  of  easy  communications,  of  ^ 
newspapers,  that  it  made  men  discontented 
with  quiet  life,  without  supplying  them  with 
intellectual  resources. 

Yet  with  all  its  disadvantages  and  discom- 
forts, Hugh  could  not  help  feeling  that  thejjie. 
of  the  country  was  more  wholesome  and  natural 
^r  thennnra[|orityormerr,  and  he  wished  that 
the  education  given  in  country  districts  could 
be  directed  more  to  awakening  an  interest  in 
country  things,  in  trees  and  birds  and  flowers, 
and  more,  too,  to  increasing  the  resources  of 
boys  and  girls,  so  that  they  could  find  amusing 
occupation  for  the  long  evenings  of  enforced 
leisure.  The  present  system  of  education  was 
directed,  Hugh  felt,  more  to  training  a  gen- 
eration of  clerks,  than  to  implanting  an  aptitude 
for  innocent  recreation  and  sensible  amuse- 
ment. People  talked  a  good  deal  about  tempting 
men  back  to  the  land,  but  did  they  not  perceive 
that,  to  do  that,  it  was  necessary  to  make  the 
agricultural  life  more  attractive  ?  It  was  a  mis- 
take that  ran  through  the  whole  of  modern 
education,  that  the  system  was  invented  by  in- 
tellectual theorists  and  not  by  practical  philoso- 
phers. The  only  real  aim  ought  to  be  to  teach 
people  how  to  enjoy  their  work,  by  making 


266  Beside  Still  Waters 

them    efficient,  and  to  enjoy  their  leisure  by 
arousing  the  imagination. 

Hugh's  musings  led  him  on  to  wonder  how 
i^^was ^225libl£j2J^iiy.>^-te  a  sense  of  happiness' 
in  people ;  that  was  the  darkest  problem  of  all. 
Children  had  the  secret  of  it ;  they  could  amuse 
themselves  under  the  most  unpropitious  cir- 
cumstances, and  invent  games  of  most  surpass- 
ing interest  out  of  the  most  grotesque  materials. 
Then  came  the  age  when  the  sexual  relations 
brought  in  a  fierce  and  intenser  joy ;  but  the 
romance  of  courtship  and  the  early  days  of 
marriage  once  over,  it  seemed  that  most  people 
settled  down  on  very  dull  lines,  and  made  such 
comfort  as  they  could  get  the  only  object  of 
their  existence.  What  was  it  that  thus  tended 
to  empty  life  of  joy  ?  Was  it  the  presence  of 
ahxlety7"tti'e'"t'a'ihire  of  vitality,  the  dull  condi- 
tions of  monotonous  labour  undertaken  for 
others'  gain  and  not  for  one's  self?  Looking 
back  at  his  own  life,  Hugh  could  not  discern 
that  his  routine  work  had  ever  deprived  him  of 
zest  and  interest.  It  was  rather  indeed  the 
other  way.  The  suspension  of  other  interests 
that  his  life  had  involved,  had  sent  him  back 
with  renewed  delight  to  the  occupations  and 
interests  of  leisure ;  he  had  been,  he  thought, 
perhaps  unusually  fortunate  in  receiving  his 
liberty  from  mechanical  work  at  a  time  when 


Sustained  Happiness         267 

his  interests  were  active  and  his  zest  undimmed. 
But  how  was  one  to  guard  the-^piaUty:  oL4i^ 
how  could  it  be  stimulated  and  increased,  if  it 
began  in  the  course  of  nature  to  flag?  It  was 
clear  that  life  could  not  have  for  every  one, 
nor  at  all  times  for  any  one,  that  quality  of  eager 
and  active  delight,  that  uplifting  of  the  heart 
and  mind  alike,  which  sometimes  surprised  one, 
when  one  felt  an  intensity  of  gladness  and  grati- 
tude at  being  simply  one's  self,  and  at  standing 
just  at  that  point  in  life,  surrounded  and  enriched 
by  exactly  the  very  things  one  most  loved  and 
desired — the  feeling  that  must  have  darted  into 
Sinbad's  mind  when  he  saw  that  the  very  sand 
of  the  valley  in  which  he  lay  consisted  of  pre- 
cious germs.  Probably  most  people  had  some 
moments,  oftenest  perhaps  in  youth,  of  this 
full-flushed,  conscious^  ha^gmjejis.  And  then 
again  most  people  had  considerable  tracts  of 
quiet  contentment,  times  when  their  work  pro- 
spered and  their  recreations  amused.  But  how 
was  one  to  meet  the  hours  when  one  was  neither 
happy  nor  contented ;  when  the  mind  flapped 
wearily  like  a  loosened  sail  in  a  calm,  when 
there  was  no  savour  in  the  banquet,  when  one 
went  heavily  ?  It  was  of  no  use  then  to  sum- 
mon joy  to  one's  assistance,  to  call  spirits  from 
the  vast  deep,  if  they  did  not  obey  one's  call. 
There  ought,  Hugh  thought,  to  be  a  reserve  of 


268  Beside  Still  Waters 

sober  piety  and  hopefulness  on  which  one  could 
draw  in  those  dark  days.  There  were  no  doubt 
man^^^Luable  and  phlegmatic  people  who,  as 
the  old  poet  said, 

**  Perfacile  angustis  tolerabant  finibus  aevum." 
(In  narrow  bounds  an  easy  life  endured.) 

But  for  those  whose  perceptions  were  keen, 
who  lived  upon  joy,  from  the  very  constitution 
of  their  nature,  how  were  such  natures — and 
he  knew  that  he  was  of  the  number — to  avoid 
sinking  into  the  mire  of  the  Slough  of  De- 
spond, how  were  they  to  rejoice  in  the  valley 
of  humiliation  ?  What  was  to  be  their  well  in 
the  vale  of  misery  ?  How  were  the  pools  to 
be  filled  with  water? 

The  answer  seemed  to  be  that  it  could  o^iily^ 
be  achieved  by  work,  by  effort^  by  prayer.  If 
one  had  definite  work  in  hand,  it  carried  one 
over  these  languid  intervals.  How  often  had 
the  i^ea  of  setting  t.Q.w.O-rk  in  these  listless 
moods  seemed  intolerable ;  yet  how  soon  one 
forgot  one's  self  in  the  exercise  of  congenial 
labour !  Here  came  in  th^  worth  of  effort, 
that  one  could  force  one's  self  to  the  task,  com- 
mit one's  self  to  the  punctual  discharge  of  an 
unwelcome  duty.  And  if  even  that  failed, 
then  one  could  cast  one's  self  into  an  inner  re- 


Prayer  269 

gion,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Psalmist,  when  he 
said,  "  Open  thy  mouth  wide  and  I  will  fill  it." 
One  could  fling  one's  prayer  into  the  dark  void, 
as  the  sailors  from  a  sinking  ship  shoot  a  rocket 
with  a  rope  attached  to  the  land,  and  then,  as 
they  haul  it  in,  feel  with  joy  the  rope  strain 
tight,  and  know  that  it  has  found  a  hold. 

Hugh  felt  that  such  experience  as  this,  ex- 
perience, that  is,  in  the  vital  forces!  prjiyer. , 
might  be  called  a  subjective  experience,  and 
could  not  be  put  to  a  scientific  test.  But  for 
all  that,  there  was  nothing  which  of  late  years 
had  so  grown  upon  him  as  the  con^ciovisaessjof 
the  effectiveness  of  a  certain  kind  of  prayer. 
This  was  not  a  mechanical  repetition  of  verbal 
forms,  but  a  strong  and  secret  uplifting  of  the  \/ 
heart  to  the  Father  of  all.  There  were  mo- 
ments when  one  seemed  baffled  and  powerless, 
when  one's  own  strength  seemed  utterly  un- 
equal to  the  burden ;  prayer  on  such  occasions 
did^not  .necess^rilx.bringja  perfectje^^^^  and 
joy,  though  there  were  times^wlieri_ ft_brp u gh t 
even  that ;  but  it  brought  sufficient  strength ; 
it  made  the  difficult,  the  dreaded  thing  pos- 
sible. Hugh  had  proved  this  a  hundred  times 
over,  and  the  marvel  to  him  was  that  he  did 
not  use  it  more;  but  thejistless^  rn^ind_some- 
tlmes^^mn3~nbT  brace  itself , to  th^^  ;  and 

then  it  seemed  to  Hugh  that  he  was  as  one 


y 


270  Beside  Still  Waters 

who  lay  thirsting,  with  water  in  reach  of  his 
nerveless  hand.  Still  there  were  few  things  of 
which  he  was  so  absolutely  certam  as  hejyas 
o£tlia^LhQjindi^g  strjengt^h^fj)m  it  seemed 

to  reveal  a  dim  form  moving  behind  the  veil  of 
things,  which  in  the  moment  of  entreaty  seemed 
to  suspend  its  progress,  to  stop,  to  draw  near, 
to  smile.  Why  the  gifts  from  that  wise  hand 
were  often  such  difficult  things,  stones  for 
bread,  serpents  for  fish,  Hugh  could  not  divine. 
But  he  tended  less  ajidle^ssl^^^^  for  precise 
things,  but  to  pray  in  the  spirit  of  the  old 
Dorian  prayer  that  what  was  good  might  be 
given  him,  even  if  he  did  not  perceive  it  to  be 
good,  and  that  what  was  evil  might  be  withheld, 
even  if  he  desired  it. 

While  he  thus  mused,  walking  swiftly,  the 
day  darkened  about  him,  drawing  the  colour 
out  of  field  and  tree.  The  tides  of  the  sky 
thickened,  and  set  to  a  deep  enamelled  green, 
and  a  star  came  out  above  the  tree-tops.  Now 
and  then  he  passed  through  currents  of  cool 
air  that  streamed  out  of  the  low  wooded  val- 
leys, rich  with  the  fragrance  of  copse  and 
dingle.  An  owl  fluted  sweetly  in  a  little  holt, 
and  was  answered  by  another  far  up  the  hill. 
He  heard  in  the  breeze,  now  loud,  now  low,  the 
far-off  motions  of  the  wheels  of  some  cart 
rumbling  blithely  homewards.     All   else  was 


The  Twilight  271 

still.  At  last  he  came  out  on  the  top  of  the 
wolds ;  the  road  stretched  before  him,  a  pale 
ribbon  among  dusky  fields ;  and  the  lights  of 
the  distant  village  pierced  through  the  darker 
gloom  of  sheltering  trees.  Hugh  seemed  that 
night  to  walk  with  his  unknown  friend  close 
beside  him,  answering  his  hopes,  stilling  his 
vague  discontents  with  a  pure  and  tender  faith- 
fulness, that  left  him  nothing  to  desire,  but 
that  the  sweet  nearness  might  not  fail  him.  At 
such  a  moment,  dear  and  wonderful  as  the 
world  was,  he  felt  that  it  held  nothing  so  beau- 
tiful or  so  dear  as  that  sweet  companionship, 
and  that  if  he  had  been  bidden,  in  that  instant, 
strong  and  content  as  he  was,  to  enter  the 
stream  of  death,  a  firm  hand  and  a  smiling  face 
would  have  lifted  him,  as  the  stream  grew  shal- 
lower about  him,  safe  and  satisfied,  up  on  the 
farther  side.  ^  -< 


XXVIII 

Among  the  most  interesting  of  the  new 
friends  that  Hugh  made  at  Cambridge  was  a 
young  Don  who  was  understood  to  hold  ad- 
vanced socialistic  views.  What  was  more  im- 
portant from  Hugh's  point  of  view  was  that  he 
was  a  singular  frank,  accessible,  and  lively  per- 
son, full  of  ideas  and  enthusiasms.  Hugh  was 
at  one  time  a  good  deal  in  his  company,  and 
at  one  time  used  to  feel  that  the  charm  of 
conversation  with  him  was,  not  that  they  dis- 
cussed things,  or  argued,  or  had  common 
interests,  but  that  it  was  like  setting  a  sluice 
open  between  two  pools  ;  their  two  minds,  like 
moving  waters,  seemed  to  draw  near,  to  inter- 
mingle, to  linger  in  a  subtle  contract.  His 
friend,  Sheldon  by  name,  was  a^eat  reader  of 
books  ;  but  he  read,  Hugh  thought,  in  the  same 
way  that  he  himself  read,  not  that  he  might 
master  subjects,  annex  and  explore  mental 
provinces,  and  classify  the  movement  of  thought, 
but_rather  that  he  might  lean  out  into  a  misty 
haunted  prospect,  where  mysterious  groves 
272 


Democracy  273 

concealed  the  windings  of  uncertain  paths,  and 
the  turrets  of  guarded  strongholds  peered  over 
the  woodland.  Hugh  indeed  guessed  dimly 
that  his  friend  had  a  whole  range  of  interests  of 
which  he  knew  nothing,  and  this  was  confirmed 
by  a  conversation  they  had  when  they  had 
walked  one  day  together  into  the  deep  country. 
They  took  a  road  that  seemed  upon  the  map  to 
lead  to  a  secluded  village,  and  then  to  lose 
itself  among  the  fields,  and  soon  came  to  the 
hamlet,  a  cluster  of  old-fashioned  houses  that 
stood  very  prettily  on  a  low  scarped  gravel  hill 
that  pushed  out  into  the  fen.  They  betook 
themselves  to  the  churchyard,  where  they  found 
a  little  ancient  conduit  that  gushed  out  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill.  This  they  learned  had  once 
been  a  well  much  visited  by  pilgrims  for  its 
supposed  healing  qualities.  It  ran  out  of  an 
arched  recess  into  a  shallow  pool,  fringed  with 
sedge,  and  filled  with  white-flowered  cresses 
and  forget-me-not.  Below  their  feet  lay  a  great 
stretch  of  rich  water-meadows,  the  wooded  hills 
opposite  looming  dimly  through  the  haze.  Here 
they  sat  for  a  while,  listening  to  the  pleasant 
trickle  of  the  spring,  and  the  conversation 
turned  on  the  life  of  villages,  the  lack  of  amuse- 
ment, the  dulness  of  field  labour,  the  steady  drift 
of  the  young  men  to  the  towns,  H  ugh  regretted 
this  and  said  that  he  wished  the  country  clergy 


2  74  Beside  Still  Waters 

would  try  to  counteract  the  tendency  ;  he  spoke 
of  village  clubs  and  natural-history  classes. 
Sheldon  laughed  quietly  at  his  remarks,  and 
said,  "  My  dear  Neville,  it  is  quite  refreshing  to 
hear  you  talk.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  you 
bear  the  name  of  Neville  ;  you  are  a  mediaeval 
aristocrat  at  heart.  These  opinions  of  yours 
V  are  as  interesting  as  fossils  in  a  bed  of  old  blue 

clay.  Such  things  are  to  be  found,  I  believe, 
imbedded  in  the  works  of  Ruskin  and  other 
patrons  of  the  democracy.  Why,  you  are  like 
a  man  who  sits  in  a  comfortable  first-class  car- 
riage in  a  great  express,  complacently  thinking 
that  the  money  he  has  paid  for  his  ticket  is  the 
motive  force  of  the  train  ;  you  are  trying  to  put 
out  a  conflagration  with  a  bottle  of  eau-de- 
Cologne.  The  battle  is  lost,  and  the  world  is 
transforming  itself,  while  you  talk  so  airily. 
You  and  other  leisurely  people  are  tolerated, 
just  as  a  cottager  lets  houseleek  grow  on  his 
tiles ;  but  you  are  not  part  of  the  building,  and 
if  there  is  a  suspicion  that  you  are  making  the 
roof  damp,  you  will  have  to  be  swept  away. 
The  democracy  you  want  to  form  is  making 
itself,  and  sooner  or  later  you  will  have  to  join 
in  the  procession." 

Hugh  laughed  serenely  at  his  companion's 
vehemence.  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  I  am  a  mild  sort 
of   socialist   myself ;  that  is,   I    see   that   it   is 


Democracy  275 

coming,  I  believe  in  equality,  and  I  don't 
question  the  rights  of  the  democracy.  But  I 
don't  pretend  to  like  it,  though  I  bow  to  it ;  the 
democracy  seems  to  me  to  threaten  nearly  all 
the  things  that  are  to  me  most  beautiful — the 
woodland  chase,  the  old  house  among  its 
gardens,  the  village  church  among  its  elms,  the 
sedge-fringed  pool,  the  wild  moorland — and  all 
the  pleasant  varieties,  too,  of  the  human  spirit, 
its  fantastic  perversities,  its  fastidious  reveries, 
its  lonely  dreams.  All  these  must  go,  of  course ; 
they  are  luxuries  to  which  no  individual  has 
any  right ;  we  must  be  drilled  and  organised ; 
we  must  do  our  share  of  the  work,  and  take  our 
culture  in  a  municipal  gallery,  or  through  cheap 
editions  of  the  classics.  No  doubt  we  shall  get 
the  '  joys  in  the  widest  commonalty  spread  '  of 
which  Wadsworth  speaks ;  and  the  only  thing 
that  I  pray  is  that  I  may  not  be  there  to  see  it." 
"  You  are  a  fine  specimen  of  the  individualist," 
said  Sheldon,  "  and  I  have  no  desire  to  convert 
you — indeed  we  speak  different  languages,  and 
I  doubt  if  you  could  understand  me  ;  there  is  to 
be  no  such  levelling  as  you  suppose,  rather  the 
other  way  indeed  ;  we  shall  not  be  able  to  do 
without  individualism,  only  it  will  be  pleasantly 
organised.  The  delightful  thing  to  me  is  to 
observe  that  you  are  willing  to  let  us  have  a 
little  of  your  culture  at  your  own  price,  but  we 


276  Beside  Still  Waters 

shall  not  want  it ;  we  shall  have  our  own  culture 
and  it  will  be  a  much  bigger  and  finer  thing 
than  the  puling  reveries  of  hedonists  ;  it  will 
be  like  the  sea,  not  like  the  scattered  moor- 
land pools." 

"  Do  you  mean,"  said  Hugh,  "  when  you 
talk  so  magniloquently  of  the  culture  of  the 
future,  that  it  will  be  different  from  the  culture 
of  the  present  and  of  the  past  ?  " 

"  No,  no,"  said  Sheldon,"  not  different  at  all, 
only  wider  and  more  free.  Do  you  not  see  that 
at  present  it  is  an  elegant  monopoly,  belonging 
to  a  few  select  persons,  who  have  been  refined 
and  civilised  up  to  a  certain  point?  The  diffi- 
culty is  that  we  can't  reach  that  point  all  at 
once — why,  it  has  taken  you  thirty  or  forty 
centuries  to  reach  it ! — and  at  present  we  can't 
get  further  than  the  municipal  art-gallery,  and 
lectures  on  the  ethical  outlook  of  Browning. 
But  that  is  not  what  we  are  aiming  at,  and  you 
are  not  to  suppose  that  yours  is  a  different  ideal 
of  beauty  and  sensibility  from  ours.  What  I 
object  to  is  that  you  and  your  friends  are  so  se- 
lect and  so  condescending.  You  seem  to  have 
no  idea  of  the  movement  of  humanity,  the 
transformation  of  the  race,  the  corporate  rise  of 
emotion." 

"  No,"  said  Hugh,  "  I  have  no  idea  what  you 
are  speaking  of,  and  I  confess  it  sounds  to  me 


Individualism  277 

very  dull.  I  have  never  been  able  to  generalise. 
I  find  it  easy  enough  to  make  friends  with 
homely  and  simple  people,  but  I  think  I  have 
no  idea  of  the  larger  scheme.  I  can  only  see 
the  little  bit  of  the  pattern  that  I  can  hold  in 
my  hand.  Every  human  being  that  I  come  to 
know  appears  to  me  strangely  and  appallingly 
distinct  and  untypical ;  of  course  one  finds  that 
many  of  them  adopt  a  common  stock  of  con- 
ventional ideas,  but  when  you  get  beneath  that 
surface,  the  character  seems  to  me  solitary  and 
aloof.  When  people  use  words  like  'democracy' 
and  *  humanity,'  I  feel  that  they  are  merely 
painting  themslves  large,  magnifying  and  dig- 
nifying their  own  idiosyncrasies.  It  does  not 
uplift  and  exalt  me  to  feel  that  I  am  one  of  a 
class.  It  depresses  and  discourages  me.  I 
hug  and  cherish  my  own  differences,  my  own 
identity.  I  don't  want  to  suppress  my  own  idio- 
syncrasies at  all;  and  what  is  more,  I  do  not 
think  that  the  race  ma  es  progress  that  way. 
All  the  people  who  have  really  set  their  mark 
upon  the  world  have  been  individualists.  Not 
to  travel  far  for  instances,  look  at  the  teaching 
of  our  Saviour ;  there  is  not  a  hint  of  patriotism, 
of  the  rights  of  society,  of  common  effort,  of  the 
corporateness  of  which  you  speak.  He  spoke  to 
the  individual.  He  showed  that  if  the  indi- 
vidual could  be  simple,  generous,  kindly  forgiv- 


278  Beside  Still  Waters 

ing,  the  whole  of  society  would  rise  into  a  region 
where  organisation  would  be  no  longer  needed. 
These  results  cannot  be  brought  about  by  legis- 
lation ;  the  spirit  must  leap  from  heart  to  heart, 
as  the  flower  seeds  itself  in  the  pasture." 

"  Would  you  be  surprised  to  hear,"  said  Shel- 
don, smiling,  "  that  I  am  in  accordance  with 
most  of  your  views  ?  Of  course  legislation  is 
not  the  end  :  it  is  only  a  way  of  dealing  with 
refractory  minorities.  The  highest  individual 
freedom  is  what  I  aim  at.  But  the  mistake  you 
make  is  in  thinking  that  the  individual  effects 
anything;  he  is  only  the  link  in  the  chain.  It  is 
all  a  much  larger  tide,  which  is  moving  resist- 
lessly  in  the  background.  It  is  this  movement 
that  I  watch  with  the  deepest  hope  and  concern. 
I  do  not  profess  to  direct  or  regulate  it,  it  is 
much  too  large  a  thing  for  that ;  I  merely  de- 
sire to  remove  as  far  as  I  can  the  obstacles  that 
hinder  the  incoming  flood." 

"  Well,"  said  Hugh,  smiling,  "  as  long  as  you 
do  not  threaten  my  individual  freedom,  I  do 
not  very  much  care." 

"Ah,"  said  Sheldon,  "  now  you  are  talking  like 
the  worst  kind  of  aristocrat,  the  early- Victorian 
Whig,  the  man  who  has  a  strong  belief  in  popu- 
lar liberty,  combined  with  an  equally  strong 
sense  of  personal  superiority." 

'^  No,  indeed  !  "  said  Hugh,  "  I  bow  most  sin- 


Corporateness  279 

cerely  before  the  rights  of  society.  I  only  claim  4/^ 
that  as  long  as  I  do  not  interfere  with  other 
people,  they  will  not  interfere  with  me.  I  re- 
cognise to  the  full  the  duty  of  men  to  work,  but 
when  I  have  complied  with  that,  I  want  to  ap- 
proach the  world  in  my  own  way.  I  am  aware 
that  reason  tells  me  I  am  one  of  a  vast  class, 
and  that  I  have  certain  limitations,  but  at  the 
same  time  instinct  tells  me  that  I  am  sternly 
and  severely  isolated.  No  one  and  nothing  can 
intrude  into  my  mind  and  self ;  and  I  feel  in- 
clined to  answer  you  like  Dionysus  in  the  Frogs 
of  Aristophanes,  who  says  to  Hercules  when  he 
is  being  hectored,  "  Don't  come  pitching  your  y 
tent  in  my  mind,  you  have  a  house  of  your 
own  !  " — Secretutn  memn  inihi,  as  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi  said — identity  is  the  one  thing  of  which 
I  am  absolutely  sure.  One  must  go  on  perceiv- 
ing, drawing  in  impressions,  feeling,  doubting, 
suffering;  one  knows  that  souls  like  one's  own 
are  moving  in  the  mist ;  and  if  one  can  discern 
any  ray  of  light,  any  break  in  the  clouds,  one 
must  shout  one's  loudest  to  one's  comrades ; 
but  you  seem  to  me  to  want  to  silence  my  lonely 
experience  by  the  vote  of  the  majority,  and  the 
majority  seems  to  me  essentially  a  dull  and  tire- 
some thing.  Of  course  this  sounds  to  you  the 
direst  egotism ;  but  when  one  has  labelled  a 
thing  egotistic,  one   has   not   necessarily  con- 


28o  Beside  Still  Waters 

demned  it,  because  the  essence  of  the  world  is 
its  egotism.  You  would  no  doubt  say  that  we 
are  no  more  alone  than  the  leaves  of  a  tree,  that 
the  sap  which  is  in  one  leaf  at  one  moment  is  the 
next  moment  in  another,  and  that  we  are  more 
linked  than  we  know.  I  would  give  much  to 
have  that  sense,  but  it  is  denied  me,  and  mean- 
while the  pressure  of  that  corporate  force  of 
which  you  speak  seems  to  me  merely  to  menace 
my  own  liberty,  which  is  to  me  both  sacred  and 
dear." 

Sheldon  smiled.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "we  do 
indeed  speak  different  languages.  To  me  this 
sense  of  isolation  of  which  you  speak  is  merely 
a  melancholy  phantom.  I  rejoice  to  see  one  of 
a  great  company,  and  I  exult  when  the  sap  of 
the  great  tree  flows  up  into  my  own  small  veins; 
but  do  not  think  that  I  disapprove  of  your  po- 
sition. I  only  feel  that  you  are  doing  uncon- 
sciously the  very  thing  that  I  desire  you  to  do. 
But  at  the  same  time  I  think  that  you  are  miss- 
ing a  great  source  of  strength,  seeing  a  thing 
from  the  outside  instead  of  feeling  it  from  the 
inside.  Yet  I  think  that  is  the  way  in  which 
artists  help  the  world,  through  the  passionate 
realisation  of  themselves.  But  you  must  not 
think  that  you  are  carrying  away  your  share  of 
the  spoil  to  your  lonely  tent.  It  belongs  to  all 
of  us,  even  what  you  have  yourself  won." 


Materialism  281 

Hugh  felt  that  Sheldon  probably  was  speak- 
ing the  truth.  He  thought  long  and  earnestly 
over  his  words.  But  the  practical  outcome  of  his 
reflections  was  that  he  realised  the  uselessness 
of  trying  to  embrace  an  idea  which  one  did  not 
instinctively  feel.  He  knew  that  his  real  life 
did  not  lie,  at  all  events  for  the  present,  in  move- 
ments and  organisations.  They  were  meaning- 
less words  to  him.  His  only  conception  of 
relationships  was  the  personal  conception.  He 
desired  with  all  his  heart  the  uplifting,  the 
amelioration  of  human  beings:  he  could  contri- 
bute best,  he  thought,  to  that,  by  speaking  out 
whatever  he  perceived  and  felt,  to  such  a  circle 
as  was  in  sympathy  with  him.  Sheldon,  no 
doubt,  was  doing  exactly  the  same  thing  ;  there 
were  multitudes  of  people  in  the  world,  who 
would  agree  with  neither  Sheldon  nor  himself, 
amiable  materialists,  whose  only  instinct  was  to 
compass  their  own  prosperity  and  comfort,  and 
who  cared  neither  for  humanity  nor  for  beauty, 
except  in  so  far  as  they  ministered  to  their  own 
convenience.  Hugh  did  not  sympathise  with 
such  people,  and  indeed  he  found  it  hard  to 
conceive,  if  what  philosophers  and  priests  pre- 
dicated of  the  purpose  of  God  was  true,  how  such 
people  came  into  being.  The  mistake,  the  gen- 
erous mistake,  that  Sheldon  made,  was  to  think 
that  humanity  was  righting  itself.      It  was  per- 


/ 


^ 


282  Beside  Still  Waters 


>^  haps  being  righted,  but  ah,  how  slowly !  The 
,erf or  was ..tQ.,belieye Jthat_9xie!s  theor i^^^  were  the 
right  ones.  It  was  all  far  larger,  vaster,  more 
mysterious  than  that.  Hugh  knew  that  the  ele- 
ment in  nature  and  the  world  to  which  he  him- 
self responded  most  eagerly  was  the  element  of 
beauty.  The  existence  of  beauty,  the  appeal  it 
made  to  the  human  spirit,  seemed  to  him  the 
most  hopeful  thing  in  the  world.  But  he  could 
not  be  sure  that  the  salvation  of  the  world  lay 
there.  Meantime,  while  he  felt  the  appeal,  it 
was  his  duty  to  tell  it  out  among  the  heathen, 
just  as  it  was  Sheldon's  duty  to  preach  the  cor- 
porateness  of  humanity ;  but  Hugh  believed 
that  the  truth  lay  with  neither,  but  that  both 
these  instincts  were  but  as  hues  of  a  prism,  that 
went  to  the  making  up  of  the  pure  white  light. 
They  were  rather  disintegrations  of  some  central 
truth,  component  elements  of  it  rather  than  the 
truth  itself.  They  were  not  in  the  least  incon- 
sistent with  each  other,  though  they  differed 
exceedingly ;  and  so  he  determined  to  follow 
his  own  path  as  faithfully  as  he  could,  and  not 
in  response  to  strident  cries  of  justice  and  truth, 
and  still  less  in  deference  to  taunts  of  selfish- 
ness and  epithets  of  shame,  to  lend  a  timorous 
hand  to  a  work  in  the  value  of  which  he  indeed 
sincerely  believed,  but  which  he  did  not  believe 
to  be  his  own  work.    The  tide  was  indeed  rolling 


Materialism  283 

in,  and  the  breakers  plunging  on  the  beach  ;  but 
so  far  as  helping  it  on  went,  it  seemed  to  him 
to  matter  little  whether  you  sat  and  watched  it 
with  awe  and  amazement,  with  rapture  and  even 
with  terror,  or  whether  you  ran  to  and  fro,  as 
Sheldon  seemed  to  him  to  be  doing,  busying 
himself  in  digging  little  channels  in  the  sand, 
that  the  roaring  sea,  with  the  wind  at  its  back, 
might  foam  a  little  higher  thus  upon  the  shore,    j^' 


XXIX 

The  morning  sun  fell  brightly  on  Hugh's 
breakfast-table ;  and  a  honeycomb  that  stood 
there,  its  little  cells  stored  with  translucent 
sweetness,  fragrant  with  the  pure  breath  of 
many  flowers,  sparkled  with  a  golden  light. 
Hugh  fell  to  wondering  over  it.  One's  food, 
as  a  rule,  transformed  and  dignified  by  art,  and 
enclosed  in  vessels  of  metal  and  porcelain,  had 
little  that  was  simple  or  ancient  about  its  asso- 
ciations ;  how  the  world  indeed  was  ransacked 
for  one's  pleasure!  meats,  herbs,  spices,  miner- 
als— it  was  strange  to  think  what  a  complexity 
of  materials  was  gathered  for  one's  delight ; 
but  honey  seemed  to  take  one  back  into  an  old 
and  savage  world.  Samson  had  gathered  it 
from  the  lion's  bones,  Jonathan  had  thrust  his 
staff  into  the  comb,  and  put  the  bright  oozings 
to  his  lips ;  humanity  in  its  most  ancient  and 
barbarous  form  had  taken  delight  in  this 
patiently  manufactured  confection.  But  a  fur- 
ther thought  came  to  him ;  the  philosopher 
spoke  of  a  development  in  nature,  a  slow  mov- 
284 


Bees  285 

ing  upward  through  painfully  gathered  experi-  \ 
ence.     It  was  an  attractive  thought,  no  doubt, 
and  gave  a  clue  to  the  bewildering  differences 
of  the  world.    But  after  all  how  incredibly  slow  | 
a  progress  it  was  !    The  whole  course  of  history 
was  minute  enough,  no  doubt,  in  comparison 
with  what  had  been ;  but  so  far  as  the  records 
of   mankind   existed,   it  was   not   possible   to  | 
trace  that  any  great  development  had  taken  | 
place.    The  lines  of  species  that  one  saw  to-day 
were  just  as  distinct  as  they  had  been  when 
the  records  of  man  began.     They  seemed  to 
run,  like  separate  threads  out  of  the  tapestry, 
complete  and  entire  from  end  to  end,  not  mix- 
ing or  intermingling.     Fish,  birds,  quadrupeds 
— some  had  died  out  indeed,  but  no  creature  x 
mentioned  in  the  earliest  records  showed  the  | 
smallest  sign  of  approximating  or  drawing  near  ] 
to  any  other  creature;  no   bird  had   lost   its 
wings  or  gained  its  hands;  no  quadruped  had 
deserted  instinct  for  reason.     Bees  were  a  case 
in  point.     They  were  insects  of  a  marvellous 
wisdom.     They  had  a  community,  a  govern- 
ment,  almost   laws.     They    knew    their    own 
business,  and  followed  it  with  intense  enthu- 
siasm.    Yet  in  all  the  centuries  during  which 
they    had    been    robbed    and    despoiled     for 
the  pleasure  of  man,  they  had  learned  no  pru- 
dence or  caution.     They  had  not  even  learned 


286  Beside  Still  Waters 

to  rebel.     Generation  after  generation,  in  fra- 
grant cottage  gardens,  they  made  their   deli- 
I  cious  store,  laying  it   up   for  their  offspring. 
I  Year  after  year  that  store  had  been  rifled  ;  yet 
ifor  all  their  curious  wisdom,  their  subtle  cal- 
Iculations,  no   suspicion  ever  seemed   to  have 
lentered  their  heads  of  what  was  going  forward, 
Vrhey  did  not  even  try  to  find  a  secret  place  in 
\he  woods  for  their  nest ;  they  built  obediently 
in  the  straw-thatched  hives,  and  the  same  spoli- 
ation continued.      A  few  days   before,  Hugh 
had  visited  a  church  in  the  neighbourhood,  and 
had  become  aware  of  a  loud  humming  in  the 
ct^ancel.     He  found  that  an  immense  swarm  of 
bees  had  been  hatched  oyt  in  the  roof,  and 
were  dying  in  hundreds,  in  their  attempt  to 
escape   through   the   closed  windows.     There 
were  plenty  of  apertures  in  the  church  through 
f  which  they  could  have  escaped,  if   they   had 
I  had  any  idea  of  exploration.     But  they  were 
;  content    to    buzz    feebly    up   and    down    the 
panes,    till    strength    failed    them,    and    they 
;;  dropped    down    on    to   the    sill    among    the 
*^  bodies  of    their  brothers.     An  old   man    who 
I  was  digging    in   the    churchyard    told    Hugh 
that    the    same    thing    had    gone    on    in    the 
church  every  summer  for  as  long  as  he  could 
remember. 

And  yet  one  did  not  hesitate  to  accept  the 


Man's  Power  287 

Darwinian  theory,  on  the  word  of  scientific 
men,  though  the  whole  of  visible  and  recorded 
experience  seemed  to  contradict  it.  Even 
stranger  than  the  amazing  complexity  of  the 
whole  scheme,  was  the  incredible  patience  with 
which  the  matter  was  matured.  What  was 
more  wonderful  yet,  man,  by  his  power  of 
observing  the  tendencies  of  nature,  could  make 
her  laws  to  a  certain  extent  serve  his  own  ends. 
He  could,  for  instance,  by  breeding  carefully 
from  short-legged  sheep,  in  itself  a  fortuitous 
and  unaccountable  variation  from  the  normal 
type,  produce  a  species  that  should  be  unable 
to  leap  fences  which  their  long-legged  ancestors 
could  surmount ;  he  could  thus  save  himself  the 
trouble  of  erecting  higher  fences.  This  power 
in  man,  this  faculty  for  rapid  self-improvement, 
differentiated  him  from  all  the  beasts  of  the 
field  ;  how  had  that  faculty  arisen  ?  It  seemed 
a  gap  that  no  amount  of  development  could 
bridge.  If  nature  had  all  been  perfect,  if  its 
rules  had  been  absolutely  invariable,  if  existence 
were  conditioned  by  regular  laws,  it  would  be 
easy  enough  to  believe  in  God.  And  yet  as  it 
was,  it  seemed  so  imperfect,  and  in  some  ways 
so  unsatisfactory ;  so  fortuitous  in  certain  re. 
spects,  so  wanting  in  prevision,  so  amazingly 
deliberate.  Such  an  infinity  of  care  seemed 
lavished    on    the    delicate    structure     of    the 


288  Beside  Still  Waters 

smallest  insects  and  plants,  such  a  prodigal 
fancy  ;  and  yet  the  laws  that  governed  them 
seemed  so  strangely  incomplete,  like  a  patient, 
artistic,  whimsical  force,  working  on  in  spite 
of  insuperable  difficulties.  It  looked  some- 
times like  a  conflict  of  minds,  instead  of  one 
mind. 

And  then,  too,  the  wonder  which  one  felt 
seemed  to  lead  nowhere.     It  did  not  even  lead 
/  one  to  ascertain  sure  principles  of  conduct  and 
life.     The  utmost  prudence,  the  most  careful 
attempt  to  follow  the  guidance  of  those  natural 
laws,  was  liable  to  be  rendered  fruitless  by  what 
was  called  an  accident.     One's  instinct  to  re- 
tain life,  to  grasp  at  happiness,  was  so  strong  ; 
and  yet,  again  and  again,  one  was  taught  that 
it  was  all  on  sufferance,  and  that  one  must 
count  on  nothing.   One  was  set,  it  seemed,  in  a 
vast  labryinth  ;  one  must  go  forward,  whether 
one  would  or  no,  among  trackless  paths,  over- 
hung by  innumerable  perils.      The  only  thing 
I  that  seemed  sure  to   Hugh  was  that  the  more 
I  one  allowed  the  awe,  the  bewilderment,  to  pene- 
I  trate  one's  heart  and  mind,  the  more  that  one 
f  indulged  a  fearful  curiosity  as  to  the  end  and 
I  purpose  of  it  all,  the  nearer  one  came,  if  not  to 
f  learning  the  lesson,  yet  at  least  towards  reaching" 
a  state  of  preparedness  that  might  fit  one  to 
receive  the  further  confidence  of  God.     Such 


A  Patient  Learner  289 

tranquility  as  one  gained  by  putting  aside  the  ^■ 
problems  which  encompassed  one,  must  be  a 
hollow  and  vain  tranquillity.  One  might  indeed 
never  learn  the  secret ;  it  might  be  the  will  of 
God  simply  to  confront  one  with  the  desperate 
problem  ;  but  a  deep  instinct  in  Hugh's  heart 
told  him  that  this  could  not  be  so  ;  and  he 
determined  that  he,  at  all  events,  would  go 
about  the  world  as  a  patient  learner,  grasping 
at  any  hint  that  was  offered  him,  whether  it 
came  by  the  waving  of  grasses  on  the  waste, 
by  the  droop  of  flower-laden  boughs  over  a 
wall,  from  the  strange  horned  insect  that 
crawled  in  the  dust  of  the  highway,  or  from 
the  soft  gaze  of  loving  eyes,  flashing  a  message 
into  the  depths  of  his  soul. 

The  pure  faint  lines  of  the  wold  that  he  saw 
from  his  window  on  the  far  horizon,  rising  so 
peacefully  above  the  level  pasture-land,  with 
the  hedgerow  elms — what  did  they  stand  for  ? 
The  mind  reeled  at  the  thought.  They  were 
nothing  but  a  gigantic  cemetery.  Every  inch 
of  that  sqftchalk  had  been  made  up  by  the 
life  and  death,  through  millions  of  years, 
of  tiny  insects,  swimming,  dying,  mouldering 
in  the  depths  of  some  shapeless  sea.  Surely 
such  a  thought  had  a  message  for  his  soul,  not 
less  real  than  the  simpler  and  more  direct  mes- 
sage of  peace  that  the  soft  pale  outlines,  the 


290  Beside  Still  Waters 

gentle  foldings  of  the  hills,  seemed  to  lend  to 
his  troubled  spirit ;  in  such  a  moment  his  faith 
rose  strong  ;  he  trod  a  shining  track  through 
the  deeps  of  God. 


XXX 

The  air  that  day  was  full  of  sunlight  like  fine 
gold,  and  put  Hugh  in  mind  of  the  city  that 
was  pure  gold  like  unto  clear  glass  ! — he  had 
often  puzzled  over  that  as  a  child  ;  gold  always 
seemed  so  opaque  a  thing,  a  surface  without 
depth  ;  but,  after  all,  it  was  true  of  the  air  about 
him  to-day — clear  and  transparent  indeed,  with 
a  perfect  clarity  and  purity,  and  yet  undoubted- 
ly all  tinged  and  lucent  liquid  gold.  He  sat 
long  on  a  bench  in  the  college  garden,  a  little 
paradise  for  the  eye  and  mind ;  it  had  been 
skilfully  laid  out,  and  Hugh  used  to  think  that 
he  had  never  seen  a  place  so  enlarged  by  art, 
where  so  much  ground  went  to  the  acre !  All 
the  outer  edge  of  it  was  encircled  by  trees — 
elms,  planes,  and  limes  ;  the  borders,  full  of 
flowering  shrubs, were  laid  out  in  graceful  curves, 
and  in  the  centre  was  a  great  oval  bed 
of  low-growing  bushes,  with  the  velvet  turf 
all  about  it,  sweeping  in  sunlit  vistas  to 
left  and  right.  It  gave  somehow  a  sense 
of  space  and  extent,  achieved  Hugh  could 
291 


292  Beside  Still  Waters 

not  guess  how.  To-day  all  the  edges  of 
the  borders  were  full  of  flowers ;  and  as  he 
wandered  among  them  he  was  more  than  ever 
struck  with  a  thought  that  had  often  come  to 
him,  the  mystery  of  flowers  !  The  extraordi- 
nary variety  of  leaf  and  colour,  the  whimsical 
shapes,  the  astonishing  invention  displayed,  and 
yet  an  invention  of  an  almost  childish  kind. 
There  was  a  clump  of  pink  blooms,  such  as  a 
child  might  have  amused  itself  with  cutting  out 
of  paper  ;  here  rose  tall  spires,  with  sharp-cut, 
serrated  leaves  at  the  base,  but  the  blue 
flowers  on  the  stem  were  curiously  lipped  and 
horned,  more  like  strange  insects  than  flowers. 
And  then  the  stainless  freshness  and  delicacy  of 
the  texture,  that  a  touch  would  soil !  These 
gracious  things,  uncurling  themselves  hour  by 
hour,  blooming,  fading,  in  obedience  to  the 
strange  instinct  of  life,  surprised  him  by  a  sud- 
den thrill.  Here  was  a  bed  of  irises,  with  smooth 
blade-like  stalks,  snaky  roots,  the  flowers  of  in- 
credible shapes,  yet  no  two  exactly  alike,  all 
splashed  and  dappled  with  the  richest  colours ; 
and  then  the  mixture  of  blended  fragrance  ;  the 
hot,  honeyed  smell  of  the  candjtuft,  with  aro- 
matic spicy  scents  of  flowers  that  he  could  not 
name.  Here  again  was  the  eschscholtzia,  with 
its  pointed  horns,  its  bluish  leaf,  and  the  delicate 
orange  petals,  yet  with  a  scent,  pure  but  acid, 


Flowers  293 

which  almost  made  one  shudder.     There  was 
some  mind  behind  it  all,  Hugh  felt,  but  what  a 
mind  !  how  leisurely,   how   fanciful,    how  un- 
fathomable !    For  whose  pleasure  were  all  these 
bright  eccentric  forms  created  ?      Certainly  not 
for  the  pleasure  of  man,  for  Hugh  thought  of 
the  acres  and  acres  of  wheat  now  rising  in  serried 
ranks  in  the  deep  country,  with  the  poppies  or  I 
the  marigolds  among  them,  all  quietly  unfold-  I 
ing  their  bells  of  scarlet  flame,  their  round,  sun-  | 
like  faces,  where  no  eye  could  see  them,  except  [ 
the   birds  that    flew    over.       Could    it  be  for  •  »* 
God's  own  pleasure    that   these  flower  shapes 
were   made?   They  could  not   even    see   each 
other,  but  rose  in  all  their  freshness,  as  by  a 
subtle    conspiracy,    yet    blind    to    the   world 
about   them,    conscious   only   of    the  sunlight 
and  the  rain,  with  no  imaginative  knowledge 
it  would  seem,  or  sympathy  with  their  breth- 
ren.    It  always  filled  Hugh  with  a  sort  of  pity    ] 
to  think  of  the  sightless  life  of  trees  and  flowers,     t 
each  rising  in  its  place,  in  plain,  on  hill,  and     j 
yet  each  enclosed  within  itself,  with  no   con-    / 
sciousness  of   its  own    beauty,   and   still   less  / 
conscious  of  the  beauty  of  its  fellows.      And 
what  was  the  life  that  animated  them  ?     Where 
did  it  come  from  ?     Where  did  it  pass  to  ?  Had 
they  any  sense  of  joy,  of  sorrow  ?      It  was  hard 
to  believe  that  they  had  not.     It  always  dis- 


294  Beside  Still  Waters 

/{jW  ;^.. tressed  Hugh  to  see  flowers  gathered  or  boughs 
broken  ;  it  seemed  a  hateful  tyranny  to  treat 
these  deHcate  creatures  so  for  an  hour's  pleasure. 
The  ^giit  of  flowers  picked  and  then  thrown 
carelessly  down  by  the  roadside,  gave  him  a 
sense  of  helpless  indignation.  The  idyllic 
picture  of  children  wandering  in  spring,  filling 
their  hands  with  flower-heads  torn  from  bank 
and  copse,  appeared  to  Hugh  as  only  painful. 
Man,  from  first  to  last,  seemed  to  spread  a  ruth- 
less destruction  around  him.  Hugh's  windows 
overlooked  a  stream-bend  much  frequented  by 
fishermen  ;  and  it  was  a  misery  to  see  the  poor 
dace,  that  had  lived  so  cool  and  merry  a  life  in 
trie  dark  pools  of  the  stream,  poising  and  dart, 
ing  among  the  river-weed,  hauled  up  struggling 
to  the  air,  to  be  greeted  with  a  shout  of  triumph, 
and  passed  about,  dying  and  tortured,  among 
the  hot  hands,  in  the  thin  choking  air.  Was 
that  what  God  made  them  for?  What  com- 
pensation awaited  them  for  so  horrible  and 
shameful  an  end. 

Hugh  felt  with  a  sigh  that  the  mystery  was 
almost  unendurable,  that  God  shou'd  make, 
hour  by  hour,  these  curious  and  exquisite  things, 
such  as  flowers  and  fishes,  and  thrust  them,  not 
.  into  a  world  where  they  could  live  out  a  peace- 
1  ful  and  innocent  life,  but  into  the  midst  of 
dangers  and  miseries.     Sometimes,  beneath  his 


Pain  and  Suffering  295 

windows,  he  could  see  a  shoal  of  little  fish  flick 
from  the  water  in  all  directions  at  the  rush  of  a 
pike,  one  of  them  no  doubt  horribly  engulfed 
in  the  monster's  jaws. 

Why  was  so  hard  a  price  to  be  paid  for  the 
delightful  privilege  of  life  ?  Was  it  indifference 
or  carelessness,  as  a  child  might  make  a  toy 
and  weary  of  it?  It  seemed  like  it,  though 
Hugh  could  not  bear  to  think  that  it  was  so  ; 
and  yet  for  thousands  of  centuries  the  same 
thing  had  been  going  on  all  over  the  world,  and 
no  one  seemed  an  inch  nearer  to  the  mystery  ^^  ^ 
of  it  all.  How  such  thoughts  seemed  to  shrivel  ^a  jj^^,i/-%I^ 
into  nothing  the  voluble  religious  systems  that  *  *  /*" 
professed  to  explain  it  all !  The  misery  of  it 
was  that,  here  and  everywhere,  God  seemed  to  be 
explaining  it  Himself  every  day  and  hour,  and 
yet  one  missed  the  connection  which  could 
make  it  all  intelligible — the  connection,  that  is, 
between  God,  as  man  in  his  heart  conceived  of 
Him,  and  God  as  He  wrote  Himself  large  in 
every  field  and  wood.  On  what  hypothesis  of 
pure  benevolence  and  perfect  justice  could  all 
these  restless  lives,  so  full  of  pain  and  suffering, 
and  all  alike  ending  in  death  and  disappearance, 
be  explained  ? 

Yet,  stranger  still,  the  mystery  did  not  make 
him  exactly  unhappy.  The  fresh  breeze  blew 
through  the  trees,  the  flowers  blazed  and  shone 


296  Beside  Still  Waters 

in  the  steady  sun,  the  intricate  lawns  lay  shim- 
mering among  the  shubberies,  and  Hugh  seemed 
full  of  a  baffling  and  baffled  joy.  At  that  mo- 
ment, at  all  events,  God  wished  him  well,  and 
spread  for  him  the  exquisite  pageant  of  life  and 
colour  and  scent ;  the  very  sunshine  stole  like 
some  liquid  essence  along  his  veins,  and  filled 
him  with  unreasoning  happiness.  And  yet  he 
too  was  encompassed  by  a  thousand  dangers ; 
there  were  a  hundred  avenues  of  sense,  of  emo- 
tion, by  which  some  dark  messenger  might  steal 
upon  him.  Perhaps  he  lurked  behind  the  trees 
of  that  sweet  paradise,  biding  his  time  to  come 
forth.  But  to-day  it  seemed  a  species  of 
treachery  to  feel  that  anything  but  active  love 
and  perfect  benevolence  was  behind  these  smil- 
ing flowers,  those  tall  trees  rippling  in  the 
breeze,  that  lucent  sky.  To-day  at  least  it 
seemed  God's  will  that  he  should  be  filled  with 
peaceful  content  and  gratitude.  He  would 
drink  the  cup  of  sweetness  to-day  without  re- 
trospect or  misgiving.  Would  the  memory  of 
that  sweetness  stay  his  heart,  and  sustain  his 
soul  when  the  dark  days  came,  when  the  garden 
should  be  bare  and  dishevelled,  and  a  strange 
dying  smell  should  hang  about  the  walks  ;  and 
when  perhaps  his  own  soul  should  be  sorrowful 
even  unto  death? 


XXXI 

The  perception  of  one  of  the  great  truths  of 
personality  came  upon  Hugh  in  a  summer  day 
which  he  had  spent,  according  to  his  growing 
inclination,  almost  alone.  In  the  morning  he 
had  done  some  business,  some  writing,  and  had 
read  a  little.  It  was  a  week  when  Cambridge 
was  almost  wholly  given  up  to  festivity,  and  the 
little  river  that  flowed  beneath  his  house  echoed 
all  day  long  .to  the  wash  of  boats,  the  stroke  of 
oars,  and  the  cheerful  talk  of  happy  people. 
The  streets  were  full  of  gaily-dressed  persons 
hurrying  to  and  fro.  This  background  of  brisk 
life  pleased  Hugh  exceedingly,  so  long  as  he 
was  not  compelled  to  take  any  part  in  it,  so 
long  as  he  could  pursue  his  own  reveries.  Part 
of  the  joy  was  that  he  could  peep  at  it  from  his 
secure  retreat ;  it  inspirited  him  vaguely,  setting, 
as  it  were,  a  cheerful  descant  to  the  soft  melody 
of  his  own  thoughts.  In  the  afternoon  he  went 
out  leisurely  into  the  country ;  it  was  pleasant  { 
to  leave  the  humming  town,  so  full  of  active  / 
life  and  merry  gossip,  and  to  find  that  in  the  f 
297 


298  Beside  Still  Waters 

country  everything  was  going  forward  as  though 
there  were  no  pressure,  no  bustle  anywhere.  The 
solitary  figures  of  men  hoeing  weeds  in  among 
the  growing  wheat,  and  moving  imperceptibly 
across  the  wide  green  fields,  pleased  him.  He 
wound  away  through  comfortable  villages, 
among  elms  and  orchards,  choosing  the  by-ways 
rather  than  the  high-roads,  and  plunging  deeper 
and  deeper  into  country  which  it  seemed  that 
no  one  ever  visited  except  on  rustic  business. 
There  was  a  gentle  south  wind  wTiich  rippled  in 
the  trees;  the  foHage  had  just  begun  to  wear 
its  late  burnished  look,  and  the  meadows  were 
full  of  high-seeded  grass,  gilded  or  silvered  with 
buttercups  and  ox-eye  daisies. 

He  stopped  for  a  time  to  explore  a  little  rustic 
church,  that  stood,  in  a  careless  mouldering 
dignity,  in  the  centre  of  a  small  village.  Here, 
with  his  gentle  fondness  for  little  omens,  he  be- 
came aware  that  some  good  thing  was  being  pre- 
pared for  him,  for  in  the  nave  of  the  church, 
under  the  eaves,  he  noted  no  less  than  three 
swarms  of  bees,  that  had  made  their  nest  under 
the  timbers  of  the  roof,  and  were  just  awakening 
into  summer  activity.  The  drones  were  being 
cast  out  of  the  hives,  and  in  an  angle  formed  by 
the  buttress  of  the  church,  Hugh  found  a  small 
lead  cistern  of  water,  which  was  a  curious  sight ; 
it  was  all  full  of  struggling  bees  fallen  from  the 


A  Man  of  Science  299 

roof  above,  either  solitary  bees  who  had  darted 
into  the  surface,  and  could  not  extricate  them- 
selves, or  d canes, .with  a. working,  bee, grappled^^ 
intent  on  pinching  the  life  out  of  the  poor  be- 
wildered creature^  the  day  of  whose  reckoning 
had  come.  Hugh  spent  a  long  time  in  pulling 
the  creatures  out  and  setting  them  in  the  sun, 
till  at  last  he  was  warned  by  slanting  shadows 
that  the  evening  was  approaching,  and  he  set 
off  upon  his  homeward  way. 

In  a  village  near  Cambridge  he  encountered  a 
friend,  a  bluff  man  of  science,  who  was  engaged 
in  a  singular  investigation.  He  kept  a  large 
variety  of  fowls,  and  tried  experiments  in  cross- 
hxggjding,  noting  carefully  in  a  register  the  plum- 
age and  physical  characteristics  of  the  chickens. 
He  had  hired  for  the  purpose  a  pleasant  house, 
with  a  few  paddocks  attached,  where  he  kept 
his  poultry.  He  invited  Hugh  to  come  in,  who 
in  his  leisurely  mood  gladly  assented.  The 
great  man  took  him  round  his  netted  runs,  and 
discoursed  easily  upon  the  principles  that  he 
was  elucidating.  He  spoke  with  a  mild  enthus- 
iasm; and  it  surprised  and  pleased  Hugh  that  a 
man  of  force  and  gravity  should  spend  many 
hours  of  every  day  in  registering  facts  about  the 
legs,  the  wattles,  and  the  feathers  of  chickens, 
and  speak  so  gravely  of  the  prospect  of  infinite  in- 
terest that  opened  before  him.    He  said  that  he 


300  Beside  Still  Waters 

had  worked  thus  for  some  years,  and  as  yet 
felt  himself  only  on  the  fringe  of  the  subject. 
They  walked  about  the  big  garden,  where  the 
evening  sun  lay  pleasantly  on  turf  and  borders 
of  old-fashioned  flowers ;  and  with  the  compla- 
cent delight  with  which  a  scientific  man  likes  to 
show  experiments  to  persons  who  are  engaged 
in  childish  pursuits  such  as  literature,  the  philo- 
sopher pointed  out  some  other  curiosities,  as 
a  plant  with  a  striped  flower,  whose  stalk  was 
covered  with  small  red  protuberances,  full  of  a 
volatile  and  aromatic  oil,  which,  when  a  lighted 
match  was  applied  to  them,  sent  off  a  little  airy 
.flame  with  a  dry  and  agreeable  fragrance,  as  the 
tiny  ignited  cells  threw  out  their  inflammable 
perfume. 

Hugh  was  pleasantly  entertained  by  these 
sights,  and  went  home  in  a  very  blithe  frame 
of  mind  ;  a  little  later  he  sat  down  to  write  in 
his  own  cool  study.  He  was  working  at  a  task 
of  writing  which  he  had  undertaken,  when  a 
thought  darted  suddenly  into  his  mind,  sug- 
gested by  the  image  of  the  man  of  science  who 
had  beguiled  an  afternoon  hour  for  him.  It 
was  a  complicated  thought  at  first,  but  it  grew 
clearer.  He  perceived,  as  in  a  vision,  humanity 
moving  onwards  to  some  unseen  goal.  He 
took  account,  as  from  a  great  height,  of  all 
those  who  are  in  the  forefront  of  thought  and 


1^ 


Prophets  301 

intellectual  movement.  He  saw  them  working 
soberly  and  patiently  in  their  appointed  lines. 
He  discerned  that  though  all  these  persons  im- 
agined that  they  had  purposely  taken  up  some 
form  of  intellectual  labour,  and  were  pursuing 
it  with  a  definite  end  in  view,  they  had  really 
no  choice  in  the  matter,  but  were  being  led 
along  certain  ways  by  as  sure  and  faithful  an 
instinct  as  the  bees  that  he  had  seen  that  day 
intent  on  their  murderous  business.  Each  of 
these  savants,  in  whatever  line  his  labours  lay, 
felt  that  he  was  striding  forward  on  a  quest  pro- 
posed, as  he  imagined,  by  himself.  But  Hugh 
saw,  with  an  inward  certainty  of  vision,  that  the 
current  which  moved  them  was  one  with  which 
they  could  not  interfere,  and  that  it  was  but  i|^ 
the  inner  movement  of  some  larger  and  wider 
mind  which  propelled  them.  He  saw  too,  that 
many  of  his  friends,  men  of  practical  learning, 
who  were  occupied,  with  a  deep  sense  of  im- 
portance and  concern,  in  accumulating  a  little 
treasure  of  facts  and  inferences,  in  science,  in 
history,  in  language,  in  philosophy,  were  but 
led  by  an  inner  instinct,  an  implanted  taste, 
along  the  paths  they  supposed  themselves  to 
be  choosing  and  laboriously  pursuing.  They  en- 
couraged each  other  at  intervals  by  the  bestowal 
of  little  honours  and  dignities;  but  at  this  mo- 
ment Hugh  saw  them  as  mere  toilers;  like  the 


1^' 


302  Beside  Still  Waters 

merchants  who  spend  busy  and  unattractive 
hves,  sitting  in  noisy  offices,  acquiring  money 
with  which  to  found  a  family,  with  the  curious 
ambition  that  descendants  of  their  own,  whom 
they  could  never  see,  should  lead  a  pleasant 
life  in  stately  country-houses,  intent  upon 
shooting  and  games,  on  social  gatherings  and 
petty  business.  He  saw  clearly  that  the  mer- 
chant and  the  philosopher  alike  had  no  clear 
idea  of  what  they  desired  to  effect,  but  merely 
followed  a  path  prepared  and  indicated.  And 
then  he  saw  that  the  minds  which  were  really 
in  the  forefront  of  all  were  the  poetical  minds, 
the  interpreters^  the  prophets,  who  saw,  not  in 
minute  detail,  and  in  small  definite  sections,  but 
with  a  wide  and  large  view,  whither  all  this  dis- 
covery, this  investigation,  was  tending.  The 
investigation  worthless  and  minute  enough  in 
itself,  as  it  seemed  to  be  when  examined  at  a 
single  point,  had  at  least  this  value,  that  some 
principle,  some  inspiration  for  life  could  be  ex- 
tracted from  it,  something  which  would  perme- 
ate slowly  the  thought  of  the  world,  set  pulses 
beating,  kindle  generous  visions,  and  teach  men 
ultimately  the  lesson  that  once  learnt,  puts  life 
into  a  different  plane,  the  lesson  that  God  is 
behind  and  over  and  in  all  things,  and  that  it  is 
His  purpose  and  not  our  own  that  is  growing 
and  ripening. 


A  Tranquil  Faith  303 

This  mighty  truth  came  home  to  Hugh  that 
quiet  afternoon  with  a  luminous  certitude,  a 
vast  increase  of  hopelessness  such  as  he  had 
seldom  experienced  before.  But  the  thought 
in  its  infinite  width  narrowed  itself  like  a  great 
stream  that  passes  through  a  tiny  sluice ;  and 
Hugh  saw  wh^t;  his  own  life  was  to^be  ;  that  he 
must  no  longer  form  plans  and  schemes,  battle 
with  uncongenial  conditions,  make  foolish  and 
fretful  efforts  in  directions  in  which  he 
had  no  real  strength  or  force ;  but  that 
his  only  vocation  must  lie  in  faithfully  and 
simply  interpreting  to  himself  and  others  this 
gigantic  truth  :  the__t||i|Ji,  ii^mely,jjiat  no  one 
ought  ever  to  indulge  rngfoomy  doubts  and 
questionings  about  what  his  work  in  the  world 
was  to  be,  but  that  men  and  women  alike  ought 
just  to  advance,  quietly  and  joyfully,  upon  the 
path  so  surely,  so  inevitably  indicated  to  them. 
The  more,  he  saw,  that  one  listens  to  this  inner 
voice,  the  more  securely  does  the  prospect  open  ; 
by  labour,  not  by  fretful  performance  of  dis- 
agreeable duty,  but  by  eager  obedience  to  the 
constraining  impulse,  is  the  march  of  the  world 
accomplished.  For  some  the  path  is  quiet  and 
joyful,  for  some  it  is  noisy  and  busy,  for  some 
it  is  dreary  and  painful ;  for  some  it  is  even 
what  we  call  selfish,  cruel  and  vile.  But  we 
must  advance  along  it  whether  we  will  or  no. 


^aZ^ 


304  Beside  Still  Waters 

And  it  became  clear  to  Hugh  that  the    more 

simply  and  clearly  we  feel  this,  the  more  will 

all  the  darker  elements  of  life  drop  away  from 

the  souls  of  men  ;  for  the  darker  elements,  the 

,    delays,    the    sorrows,   the    errors,  are  in  vast 

measure  the  shadows  that  come  from  our  be- 

lieving  that  it  is  we  who  cause  and  originate, 

.^i^       that  our  efforts  and  energies  are  valuable  and 

«^  useful.      They  are  both,  when  God  is  behind 

them ;  but  when  we  strive  to  make  them  our 

own,    their    pettiness    and    insignificance    are 

revealed. 

It  must  not  be  said  that  Hugh  never  fell 
from  this  deep  apprehension  of  the  truth. 
There  were  hours  when  he  was  haunted  by  the 
spectres  of  his  own  unregenerate  action,  when 
he  regretted  mistakes,  when  he  searched  for 
occupation  ;  but  he  grew  to  see  that  even  these 
sad  hours  only  brought  out  for  him,  with  deep- 
er and  clearer  significance,  the  essential  truth 
of  the  vision,  which  did  indeed  transform  his 
life.  When  he  was  ill,  anxious,  overwrought, 
he  grew  to  feel  that  he  was  being  held  quietly 
back  for  a  season ;  and  it  led  to  a  certain 
deliberate  disentangling  of  himself  from  the 
lesser  human  relations,  from  a  consciousness 
that  his  appointed  work  was  not  here,  but  that 
he  was  set  apart  and  consecrated  for  a  particular 
work,  the  work  of  apprehending  and  discerning. 


Trustfulness  305 

of  interpreting  and  expressing,  the  vast  design 
of  life  ;  it  represented  itself  to  him  in  an  image 
of  children  wandering  in  fields  and  meadows, 
just  observing  the  detail  and  the  petty  connec-      , 
tion    of    objects,    the    hedgerow,    the  stream     I 
appearing  in  certain  familiar  places,  by  ford  or 
bridge,   the   trees  that   loomed  high  over  the      / 
nearer   orchard,  and  seemed  part  of  it.     And 
then  one  of  these  children,  he  thought,  might, 
on  a  day  of  surprises,  be  taken  up  to  the  belfry    ;' 
of  the  old  church-tower  in  the  village,  and  out     , 
:ipon  the  roof.     Then  in  a  moment  the  plan,    | 
the  design  of  all  would  be  made  clear,  the  hid- 
den connection  revealed.     Those  great  tower- 
ing elms,  that  rose  in  soft  masses  above  the 
orchard,   were   in  reality  nothing  but  the  elms 
that  the  child  knew  so  well  from  the  other  side, 
that  overhung  his  own  familiar  garden.     There, 
among  the  willows,  the  stream  passed  from  ford 
to  bridge,  and  on  again,  circling  in  loops  and 
curves.     The  village  would  be  a  different  place 
after  that,  not  known  by  an  empirical  experi- 
ence, but  apprehended    as  a  construction,    as 
a  settled  design,  where  each  field  and  garden 
had  its  appointed  place. 

And  so  Hugh,  with  a  great  effort  of  utter 
resignation,  a  resignation  which  had  something     w 
passionate  and  eager  about  it,  cast  himself  into 
the  Father's  hands,  and  prayed  that  he  might 


3o6  Beside  Still  Waters 

no  longer  do  anything  but  discern  and  follow 
the  path  that  was  prepared  for  him.  Long  and 
late  these  thoughts  haunted  him  ;  but  when  he 
went  at  last  through  the  silent  house  to  his  own 
room,  it  was  with  a  sense  that  he  was  reposing 
in  perfect  trustfulness  upon  the  will  of  One 
who,  whether  He  led  him  forward  or  held  him 
back,  knew  with  a  deep  and  loving  tenderness 
one  thing  that  he,  and  he  only,  could  do  in  the 
great  complicated  world.  That  world  was  now 
hushed  in  sleep.  But  the  weir  rushed  and 
plunged  in  the  night  outside  ;  and  over  the 
dark  trees  that  fringed  the  stream  there  was  a 
tender  and  patient  light,  that  stole  up  from  the 
rim  of  the  whirling  globe,  as  it  turned  its  weary 
sides,  with  punctual  obedience,  to  the  burning 
light  of  the  remote  sun. 


XXXII 

Hugh  found  that,  as  he  grew  older,,^  he 
tended  to  read  less,  or  rather  that  he  tended 
foTrecur  more' and  more  to  the  familiar  books. 
He  had  always  been  a  rapid  reader,  and  had 
followed  the  line  of  pure  pleasure,  rather  than 
pursued  any  scheme  of  self-improvement.  He 
became  aware,  particularly  at  Cambridge,  that 
he  was  by  no  means  a  well-informed  man,  and 
that  his  mind  was  very  incompletely  furnished. 
He  was  disposed  to  blame  his  education  for  this, 
to  a  certain  extent ;  it  had  been  almost  purely 
classical ;  he  had  been  taught  a  little  science,  a 
little  mathematics,  and  a  little  French  ;  but  the 
only  history  he  had  done  at  school  had  been 
ancient  history,  to  illustrate  the  classical  au- 
thors he  had  been  reading  ;  and  the  result  had 
been  a  want  of  mental  balance ;  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  modern  world  or  the  movement 
of  European  history  ;  the  whole  education  had 
in  fact  been  linguistic  and  literary ;  it  had  sac- 
rificed everything  to  accuracy,  and  to  the  con- 
sideration of  niceties  of  expression.  It  might 
307 


3o8  Beside  Still  Waters 

have  been  urged  that  this  was  in  itself  a  train- 
ing in  the  art  of  verbal  expression ;  but  here 
it  seemed  to  Hugh  that  the  whole  of  the  train- 
ing had  confined  itself  to  the  momentary  effect, 
the  ring  of  sentences,  the  adjustment  of  epi- 
thets, and  that  he  had  received  no  sort  of  train- 
ing in  the  art  of  structure.  He  had  never  been 
made  to  write  essays  or  to  arrange  his  materials. 
He  thought  that  he  ought  to  have  been  taught 
how  to  deal  with  a  subject ;  but  his  exercises 
had  been  almost  wholly  translations  from  an- 
cient classical  languages.  He  had  been  taught, 
in  fact,  how  to  manipulate  texture,  but  never 
how  to  frame  a  design.  The  result  upon  his 
reading  had  been  that  he  had  always  been  in 
search  of  phrases,  of  elegant  turns  of  expression 
and  qualification,  but  he  had  never  learned  how 
to  apprehend  the  ideas  of  an  author.  He  had 
not  cared  to  do  this  for  himself,  and  from  the 
examination  point  of  view  it  had  been  simply 
a  waste  of  time.  All  that  he  had  ever  tried  to 
do  had  been  so  to  familiarise  himself  with  the 
style,  the  idiosyncrasies  of  authors,  that  he 
might  be  able  to  reproduce  such  superficial  ef- 
fects in  his  compositions,  or  to  disentangle  a 
passage  set  for  translation.  He  had  not  arrived 
at  any  real  mastery  of  either  Greek  or  Latin, 
and  it  seemed  to  him,  reflecting  on  this  process 
long    afterwards,  that    the     system    had    en- 


Classical  Education  309 

couraged  in  him  a  naturally  faulty  and  dilet- 
tante bent  in  literature.  In  reading,  for  instance, 
a  dialogue  of  Plato,  he  had  never  cared  to 
follow  the  argument,  but  only  to  take  pleas- 
ure in  beautiful,  isolated  thoughts  and  images; 
in  reading  a  play  of  Sophocles,  he  had  cared 
little  about  the  character-drawing  or  the  devel- 
opment of  the  dramatic  situation  ;  he  had  only 
striven  to  discover  and  recollect  extracts  of 
gnomic  quality,  sonorous  flights  of  rhetoric, 
illustrative  similes. 

The  same  tendency  had  affected  all  his  own 
reading,  which  had  lain  mostly  in  the  direction 
of  belles-lettres  and  literary  annals  ;  and,  in  the 
course  of  his  official  life,  literature  had  been  to 
him  more  a  beloved  recreation  than  a  matter  of 
mental  discipline.  The  result  had  been  that  he 
found  himself,  in  the  days  of  his  emancipation, 
with  a  strong  perception  of  Hterary  quality,  and 
a  wide  knowledge  of  poetical  and  imaginative 
literature  ;  he  had,  too,  a  considerable  acquaint- 
ance with  the  lives  of  authors  ;  and  this  was  all. 
He  could  read  French  with  facility,  but  with 
little  appreciation  of  style.  Both  German  and 
Italian  were  practically  unknown  to  him. 

Hugh  made  the  acquaintance,  which  ripened 
into  friendship,  of  a  young  Fellow  of  a  neigh- 
bouring college,  whose  education  had  been  con- 
ducted on  entirely  different  lines.     This  young 


3IO  Beside  Still  Waters 

man  had  been  educated  privately,  his  health 
making  it  impossible  for  him  to  go  to  school. 
He  had  read  only  just  enough  of  classics  to  en- 
able him  to  pass  the  requisite  examinations, 
and  he  had  been  trained  chiefly  in  history  and 
modern  languages.  He  had  taken  high  honours 
in  history  at  Cambridge,  and  had  settled  down 
as  a  historical  lecturer.  As  this  friendship  in- 
creased, and  as  Hugh  saw  more  and  more  of 
his  friend's  mind,  he  began  to  realise  his  own 
deficiencies.  His  friend  had  an  extraordinary 
grasp  of  political  and  social  movements.  He 
was  acquainted  with  the  progress  of  philosophy 
and  with  the  development  of  ideas.  It  was  a 
brilliant,  active,  well-equipped  intellect,  moving 
easily  and  with  striking  lucidity  in  the  regions 
of  accurate  knowledge.  Sometimes,  in  talking 
to  his  friend,  Hugh  became  painfully  aware  of 
the  weakness  of  his  own  slouching,  pleasure- 
loving  mind.  It  seemed  to  him  that,  in  the  in- 
tellectual region,  he  was  like  a  dusty  and  ragged 
tramp,  permeated  on  sunshiny  days  with  a  sort 
of  weak,  unsystematic  contentment,  dawdling 
by  hedge-row  ends  and  fountain-heads,  lying 
in  a  vacant  muse  in  grassy  dingles,  and  sleeping 
by  stealth  in  the  fragrant  shadow  of  hay-ricks; 
while  his  friend  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  brisk 
gentleman  in  a  furred  coat,  flashing  along  the 
roads  in  a  motor-car,  full  of  useful  activity  and 


Mental  Discipline  311 

pleasant  business.  His  friend's  idea  of  educa- 
tion was  of  a  strict  and  severe  mental  discipline  ; 
he  did  not  over-estimate  the  value  of  know- 
ledge, but  regarded  facts  and  dates  rather  as 
a  skilled  workman  regards  his  bright  and  well- 
arranged  tools.  What  he  did  above  all  things 
value  was  a  keen,  acute,  clear,  penetrating  mind, 
which  arrayed  almost  unconsciously  the  ele- 
ments of  a  problem,  and  hastened  unerringly  to 
a  conclusion.  The  only  point  in  which  Hugh 
rated  his  own  capacity  higher,  was  in  a 
certain  relish  for  literary  effect.  His  friend 
was  a  great  reader,  but  Hugh  felt  that 
he  himself  possessed  a  power  of  enjoyment, 
an  appreciation  of  colour  and  melody,  a 
thrilled  delight  in  what  was  artistically  ex- 
cellent, of  which  his  friend  seemed  to  have 
little  inkling. 

His  friend  could  classify  authors,  and  could 
give  off-hand  a  brilliant  and  well-sustained 
judgment  on  their  place  in  literary  develop- 
ment, which  fairly  astonished  Hugh.  But  the 
difference  seemed  to  be  that  his  friend  had 
mastered  books  with  a  sort  of  gymnastic  agil- 
ity, and  that  his  mind  had  reached  an  aston- 
ishing degree  of  technical  perfection  thereby ; 
but  Hugh  felt  that  to  himself  books  had  been 
a  species  of  food,  and  that  his  heart  and  spirit 
had  gained  some  intensity  from  them,  some 


312  Beside  Still  Waters 

secret  nourishment,  which  his  friend  had  to  a 
certain  extent  missed. 

Hugh  had  been  so  stirred  on  several  occa- 
sions by   a   sense   of  shame  at  realising  the 
limpotence  and  bareness  of  his  own  mind,  that 
|he  laid  down  an  ambitious  scheme  of  self-im- 
Iprovement,  and  attacked,  Ijistory  with  aTzearoiis 
Idesire   for  his   own   mental  reform.      But   he 
Isoon  discovered  that  it  was  useless.     Such  an 
teflort   might  have   been   made  earlier  in  life, 
before  habits   had   been   formed  of  desultory 
enjoyment,  but  it  was  in  vain  now.     He  real- 
ised   that    accurate    knowledge    simply     fell 
through  his  mind  like  a  shower  of  sand ;  a  little 
of  it  lodged  on  inaccessible  ledges,  but  most  of 
it  was  spilled  in  the  void.     He  saw  that  his  only 
hope  was  to  strengthen  and  enlarge  his  exist- 
ing preferences,  and  that  the  best  that  he  could 
hope  to  arrive  at  was  to  classify  and  systema- 
tise such  knowledge  as  he  at  present  possessed. 
It  was  too  late  to  take  a  new  departure,  or  to 
aim  at  any  completeness  of  view.     The  mental 
discipline  that  he  required,  and  of  which  he 
felt  an  urgent  need,  must  be  attained  by   a 
diligent  sorting  of  his  own  mental  stores,  hap- 
hazard and  disjointed  as  they  were.    And  after 
all,  he  felt,  there  was  room  in  the  world   for 
many  kinds  of  minds.     Mental  discipline  from 
the  academical  point  of  view  was  a  very  import- 


Mental  Fertilisation  313 

ant  thing,  perhaps  the  thing  that  the  ordinary 
type  of  public  schoolboy  was  most  in  need  of. 
But  there  was  another  province  too,  the  pro- 
vince of  mental  appreciation,  and  it  was  in  this 
field  that  Hugh  felt  himself  competent  to 
labour.  It  seemed  to  him  that  there  were 
many  young  men  at  the  university,  capable  of 
intellectual  pleasure,  who  had  been  starved  by 
the  at  once  diffuse  and  dignified  curriculum 
of  classical  education.  Hugh  felt  that  he  him- 
self had  been  endowed  with  an  excess  of  the 
imaginative  and  artistic  quality,  and  that, 
owing  to  natural  instincts  and  intellectual 
home-surroundings,  he  had  struck  out  a  path 
for  himself;  books  had  been  to  Hugh  from  his 
earliest  years  cKanheTs"  of  communication  with 
other  minds.  He  could  not  help  doubting 
whether  they  ever  developed  qualities  or  de- 
lights that  did  not  naturally  exist  in  a  rudi- 
mentary form  in  the  mind  which  fell  under 
their  influences.  He  could  not,  in  looking 
back,  trace  the  originating  power  of  any  book 
on  his  own  mind ;  the  ideas  of  others  had 
rather  acted  in  fertilising  the  germs  which  lay 
dormant  in  his  own  heart.  They  had  deep- 
ened the  channels  of  his  own  thoughts,  they 
had  revealed  him  to  himself;  but  there  had 
always  been,  he  thought,  an  unconscious  power 
of  selection  at  work  ;  so  that  uncongenial  ideas. 


/ 


314  Beside  Still  Waters 

unresponsive  thoughts,  had  merely  danced  off 
the  surface  without  affecting  any  lodgment. 
He  had  gained  in  taste  and  discrimination,  but 
he  could  not  trace  any  impulse  from  literature 
which  had  set  him  exploring  a  totally  unfamil- 
iar region.  Sometimes  he  had  resolutely  sub- 
mitted his  mind  to  the  leadership  of  a  new 
author ;  but  he  had  always  known  in  his  heart 
that  the  pilgrimage  would  be  in  vain.  He  felt 
that  he  would  have  gained  if  he  had  known 
this  more  decisively,  and  if  he  had  spent  his 
energies  more  faithfully  in  pursuing  what  was 
essentially  congenial  to  him. 

There  were  cei-t^in.  authprs,  certain  poets 
who,  he  had  instinctively  felt  from  the  outset, 
viewed  life,  nature,  and  art  from  the  same 
standpoint  as  himself.  His  mistake  had  been 
in  not  defining  that  standpoint  more  clearly, 

t  but  in  wandering  vaguely  about,  seeking  for  a 
guide,  for  way-posts,  for  beaten  tracks.  What 
he  ought  to  have  done  was  to  have  fixed  his 

,  eyes  upon  the  goal,  and  fared  directly  thither. 

But  this  misdirected  attempt,  over  which  he 
wasted  some  precious  months,  to  enlarge  the 
horizon  of  his  mind,  had  one  valuable  effect. 
It  revealed  to  him  at  last  what  the  object  of 
his  search  was.  He  become  aware  that  he  was 
vowed  to  the  pursuit  of  beauty,  of  a  definite 
and  almost  lyrical  kind.    He  saw  that  his  mind 


Poetry  315 

was  not  made  to  take  in,  with  a  broad  and  vig- 
orous sweep,  the  movement  of  human  en- 
deavour ;  he  saw  that  he  had  no  conception  of 
wide  social  or  political  forces,  of  the  development 
of  communities,  of  philosophical  ideals.  These 
were  great  and  high  things,  and  his  studies 
gave  him  an  increased  sense  of  their  greatness 
and  significance.  But  Hugh  saw  that  he  could 
neither  be  a  historian  nor  a  philosopher,  but  **^ 
that  his  work  must  be  of  an  individualistic 
type.  He  saw  that  the  side  of  the  world  which 
appealed  to  himself  was  the  subtle  and  myste- 
rious essence  of  beauty — the  beauty  of  nature, 
of  art,  of  music,  of  comradeship,  of  relations 
with  other  souls.  The  generalisations  of  science 
had  often  a  great  poetical  suggestiveness ;  but 
he  had  no  vestige  of  the  scientific  temper 
which  is  content  to  deduce  principles  from 
patient  and  laborious  investigation.  He  saw 
that  his  own  concern  must  be  with  the  emo- 
tions and  the  hearts  of  his  fellows,  rather  than 
with  their  minds  ;  that  if  he  possessed  any 
qualities  at  all,  they  were  of  a  poetical  kind. 
The  mystery  of  the  world  was  profound  and 
dark,  though  Hugh  could  see  that  science  was 
patiently  evolving  some  order  out  of  the  chaos. 
But  the  knowledge  of  the  intricate  scheme  was 
but  a  far-off  vision,  an  august  hope;  and  mean- 
while men  had  to  meet  life  as  they  could,  to 


3i6  Beside  Still  Waters 

evolve  enough  hopefulness,  enough  inspiration 
from  their  complicated  conditions  to  enable 
them  to  live  a  full  and  vigorous  life. 

Poetry,  to  give  a  large  name  to  the  various 
interpretations  of  subtle  beauty,  could  offer  in 
some  measure  that  hope,  that  serenity ;  could 
lend  the  dignity  to  life  which  scientific  in- 
vestigations tended  to  sweep  away.  Science 
seemed  to  reveal  the  absolute  pettiness,  the 
minute  insignificance  of  all  created  things,  to 
show  how  inconsiderable  a  space  each  separate 
ndividual  occupied  in  the  sum  of  forces;  the 
thought  weighed  heavily  upon  Hugh  that  he 
was  only  as  the  tiniest  of  the  drops  of  water  in  a 
vast  cataract  that  had  rushed  for  thousands  of 
years  to  the  sea ;  it  was  a  paralysing  concep- 
tion. It  was  true  that  the  water-drop  had  a 
definite  place  ;  yet  it  was  the  outcome  and  the 
victim  of  monstrous  forces ;  it  leaped  from  the 
mountain  to  the  river,  it  ran  from  the  river  to 
the  sea  ;  it  was  spun  into  cloud-wreaths;  it  fell 
on  the  mountain-top  again  ;  it  was  perhaps  con- 
gealed for  centuries  in  some  glacier-bed  ;  then 
it  was  free  again  to  pursue  its  restless  progress. 
But  to  feel  that  one  was  like  that,  was  an  un- 
utterably dreary  and  fatiguing  thought.  The 
weary  soul  perhaps  was  hurried  thus  from  zone 
to  zone  of  life,  never  satisfied,  never  tranquil; 
with   a  deep   instinct   for   freedom   and  tran- 


The  August  Soul  317 

quillity,  yet  never  tranquil  or  free.  Then,  into 
this  hopeless  and  helpless  prospect,  came  the 
august  message  of  poetry,  revealing  the  tran- 
scendent dignity,  the  solitariness,  the  majesty 
of  the  indomitable  soul ;  bidding  one  remember 
that  though  one  was  a  humble  atom  in  a  vast 
scheme,  yet  one  had  the  sharp  dividing  sense 
of  individuality;  that  each  individual  was  to 
himself  the  measure  of  all  things,  a  fortress  of 
personality ;  that  one  was  not  merely  whirled 
about  in  a  mechanical  order ;  but  that  each 
man  was  as  God  Himself,  able  to  weigh  and 
survey  the  outside  scheme  of  things,  to  approve 
and  to  disapprove;  and  that  the  human  will 
was  a  mysterious  stronghold,  impregnable,  se- 
cure, into  which  not  even  God  Himself  could 
intrude  unsummoned.  How  small  a  thing  to 
the  eye  of  the  scientist  were  the  human  pas- 
sions and  designs,  the  promptings  of  instinct 
and  nature ;  but  to  the  eye  of  the  poet  how 
sublime  and  august !  These  tiny  creatures 
could  be  dominated  by  emotions — love,  honour, 
patriotism,  liberty — which  could  enable  them, 
frail  and  impotent  as  they  were,  to  rise  ma- 
jestically above  the  darkest  and  saddest  limita- 
tions of  immortality.  They  could  be  racked 
with  pain,  crushed,  tormented,  silenced  ;  but 
nothing  could  make  them  submit,  nothing 
could  force  them  to  believe  that  their  pains 


3i8  Beside  Still  Waters 

were  just.  Herein  lay  the  exceeding  dignity 
of  the  human  soul,  that  it  could  arraign  its 
Creator  before  its  own  judgment-seat,  and  could 
condemn  Him  there.  It  could  not,  it  seemed, 
refuse  to  be  called  into  being,  but,  once  exist- 
ent, it  could  obey  or  not  as  it  chose.  Its  joys 
might  be  clouded,  its  hopes  shattered,  but  it 
need  not  acquiesce  ;  and  this  power  of  rebellion, 
of  criticism,  of  questioning,  seemed  to  Hugh 
one  of  the  most  astonishing  and  solemn  things 
in  the  world.  And  thus  to  Hugh  the  history 
of  the  individual,  the  aspirations  and  longings 
of  mankind,  seemed  to  contain  a  significance, 
a  sanctity  that  nothing  could  remove. 

He  did  not  believe  that  this  rebellious  ques- 
tioning was  justified,  but  this  did  not  lessen  his 
astonishment  at  the  fact  that  the  human  soul 
could  claim  a  right  to  decide,  by  its  own  in- 
tuitions, what  was  just  and  what  was  unjust, 
and  could  accuse  the  Eternal  Lord  of  Life  of 
not  showing  it  enough  of  the  problem  for  it  to 
be  able  to  acquiesce  in  the  design,  as  it  desired 
to  do.  Hugh  believed  that  he  was  justified  in 
holding  that  as  Love  was  the  strongest  power 
in  the  world,  the  Creator  and  Inspirer  of  that 
love  probably  represented  that  quality  in  the 
supremest  degree,  though  this  was  an  inference 
only,  and  not  supported  by  all  the  phenomena 
of  things.     But  it  seemed  to  him  the  one  clue 


The  Secret  of  a  Star  319 

through  the  darkness ;  and  this  secret  hope  was 
perhaps  the  highest  and  best  thought  that 
came  to  him  from  searching  the  records  of 
humanity  and  the  conceptions  of  mortal  minds. 
And  therefore  Hugh  felt  that  he  was  on  the 
side  of  the  individual ;  and  that  he  touched  life 
in  that  relation.  Literature  then  must  be  for 
him,  in  some  form  or  other,  an  attempt  to 
quicken  the  individual  pulse,  to  augment  the  in- 
dividual sense  of  significance.  He  must  abstain 
from  what  was  probably  a  higher  work;  but  he 
must  not  lose  faith  thereby.  He  must  set  him- 
self with  all  his  might  to  preach  a  gospel  of 
beauty  to  minds  which,  like  his  own,  were  in- 
capable of  the  larger  mental  sweep,  and  could 
only  hope  to  disentangle  the  essence  of  the  mo- 
ment, to  refine  the  personal  sensation.  That 
was  the  noble  task  of  high  literature,  of  art, 
of  music,  of  the  contemplation  of  nature,  that 
it  could  give  the  mind  a  sense  of  largeness,  of 
dim  and  wistful  hope,  of  ultimate  possibilities. 
The  star  that  hung  in  the  silent  heaven — it  was 
true  that  it  was  the  creation  of  mighty  forces, 
that  it  had  a  place,  a  system,  a  centrifugal 
energy,  a  radiation  of  its  own.  That  was  in  a 
sense  the  message  of  a  star ;  but  it  had  a  further 
appeal,  too,  to  the  imaginative  mind,  in  that  it 
hung  a  glowing  point  of  ageless  light,  infinitely 
remote,  intolerably  mysterious,  a  symbol  of  all 


320  Beside  Still  Waters 

the  lustrous  energies  of  the  aspiring  soul.  And 
in  one  sense,  indeed,  the  pure  imagination  could 
invest  such  vast  creatures  of  God  with  even 
a  finer,  freer  charm  than  scientific  apprehension. 
Science  could  indicate  its  bulk,  its  motions, 
its  distance,  even  analyse  its  very  bones  ;  but  it 
could  do  no  more  ;  while  the  spirit  could  glide, 
as  in  an  aerial  chariot,  through  the  darkness  of 
the  impalpable  abyss,  draw  nearer  and  nearer 
in  thought  to  the  vast  luminary,  see  unscathed 
its  prodigious  vents  spouting  flame  and  smoke, 
and  hear  the  roar  of  its  furnaces ;  or  softly  alight 
upon  fields  of  dark  stones,  and  watch  with  awe 
the  imagined  progress  of  forms  intolerably  huge, 
swollen  as  with  the  bigness  of  nightmare..  Here 
was  the  strange  contrast,  that  science  was  all  on 
fire  to  learn  the  truth  ;  while  the  incomprehen- 
sible essence  of  the  soul,  with  its  limitless  vis- 
ions, was  capable  of  forming  conceptions  which 
the  truth  should  disappoint.  And  here  again 
came  in  a  strange  temptation.  If  life  and  iden- 
tity were  to  be  indefinitely  prolonged,  then 
Hugh  had  no  wish  but  to  draw  nearer  to  the 
truth,  however  hard  and  even  unpalatable  it 
might  be ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
life  were  all,  then  it  seemed  that  one  might  be 
even  the  happier  for  comfortable  and  generous 
delusions. 

Hugh,  then,  felt  that  if  the  old  division  of 


Idealistic  and  Scientific       321 

more  highly  developed  minds  was  the  true  one ; 
if  one  was  either  Aristotelian  or  Platonist,  that 
is  to  say,  if  one's  tendencies  were  either  scien- 
tific or  idealistic,  there  was  no  doubt  on  which 
side  of  the  fight  he  was  arrayed  ;  not  that  he 
thought  of  the  two  tendencies  as  antagonistic ; 
and  if  indeed,  the  scientific  mind  tended  to  con- 
temn the  idealistic  mind,  as  concerning  itself 
with  fancies  rather  than  with  facts,  he  felt  that 
there  could  not  be  a  greater  mistake  than  for 
the  idealistic  mind  to  contemn  the  scientific. 
Rather,  he  thought,  the  idealists  should  use  the 
scientific  toilers  as  patient,  humble,  and  service- 
able people,  much  as  the  Dorian  conquerors  of 
Sparta  used  the  Helots,  and  encouraged  them  to 
perform  the  necessary  and  faithful  work  of  in- 
vestigation for  which  the  idealists  were  unfitted. 
The  mistake  which  men  of  scientific  temper 
made,  Hugh  thought,  was  to  concern  them- 
selves only  or  mainly,  with  material  phenomena. 
The  idealistic  and  imaginative  tendencies  of 
man  were  just  as  much  realities,  and  no  amount 
of  materialism  could  obliterate  them.  What 
was  best  of  all  was  to  import  if  possible  a  scien- 
tific  temper  into  idealistic  matters  ;  not  to  draw 
hasty  or  insecure  generalisations,  nor  to  neglect 
phenomena  however  humble.  Books,  then,  for 
Hugh  were,  in  their  largest  aspect,  indications 
and  manifestations  of  the   idealistic  nature  of 


322  Beside  Still  Waters 

man.  The  interest  about  them  was  the  perceiv- 
ing of  the  different  angles  at  which  a  thought 
struck  various  minds,  the  infusion  of  personality 
into  them  by  individuals,  the  various  interpre- 
tations which  they  put  upon  perceptions,  the 
insight  into  various  kinds  of  beauty  and  hope- 
fulness which  the  writers  displayed. 

And  thus  Hugh  turned  more  and  more  away 
from  the  critical  apprehension  of  imaginative 
literature  to  the  mystical  apprehension  of  it. 
A  critical  apprehension  of  it  was  indeed  neces- 
sary, for  it  initiated  one  into  the  secrets  of 
expression  and  of  structure,  in  which  the  force 
of  personality  was  largely  displayed,  taking  shape 
from  the  thought  in  them,  as  clothes  take  shape 
from  their  wearers.  But  deeper  still  lay  the 
mystical  interpretation.  In  the  world  of  books 
Ee'r^eciTdth'e  voice  of  the  soul,  sometimes 
lamenting  in  desolate  places,  sometimes  singing 
blithely  to  itself,  as  a  shepherd  sings  upon  a 
headland,  in  sight  of  the  blue  sea ;  sometimes 
there  came  a  thrill  of  rapture  into  the  voice, 
when  the  spirit  was  filled  to  the  brim  with  the 
unclouded  joys  of  the  opening  world,  the  scent 
of  flowers,  the  whispering  of  foliage  in  great 
woods,  the  sweet  harmonies  of  musical  chords, 
the  glance  of  beloved  eyes,  or  the  accents  of 
some  desired  voice;  and  then  again  all  this 
would  fade  and  pale,  and  the  soul  would  sit 


The  End  of  Reading  323 

wearied  out,  lamenting  its  vanished  dreams  and 
the  delicate  delights  of  the  springtime,  in  some 
wild  valley  overhung  with  dark  mountains,  un- 
der the  dreadful  and  inscrutable  eye  of  God.  Life, 
how  insupportable,  how  beautiful  it  seemed  ! 
Full  of  treasures  and  terrors  alike,  its  joys 
and  its  woes  alike  unutterable.  The  strangest 
thing  of  all :  that  the  mind  of  man  was  capable 
of  seeing  that  there  was  a  secret,  a  mystery 
about  it  all ;  could  desire  so  passionately  to 
know  it  and  to  be  satisfied,  and  yet  forbidden 
even  dimly  to  discern  its  essence. 

What,  after  all,  Hugh  reflected,  was  the^jgaid 
oJI,  readinjj?  Not  erudition  nor  information, 
though  many  people  seemed  to  think  that  this 
was  a  meritorious  object.  Professed  historians 
must  indeed  endeavour  to  accumulate  facts,  and 
to  arrive  if  possible  at  a  true  estimate  of  ten- 
dencies and  motives ;  the  time  had  not  yet 
come,  said  the  most  philosophical  historians, 
for  any  deductions  to  be  drawn  as  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mind  of  the  world,  the  slow 
increase  of  knowledge  and  civilisation  ;  and  yet 
that  was  the  only  ultimate  value  of  their  work, 
to  attempt,  namely,  to  arrive  at  the  complex 
causes  and  influences  that  determined  the 
course  of  history  and  progress.  Hugh  felt  in- 
stinctively that  his  mind,  impatient,  inaccurate, 
subtle  rather  than  profound,  was  ill  adapted  for 


/ 


324  Beside  Still  Waters 

such  work  as  this.  He  felt  that  it  was  rather 
his  work  to  arrive,  if  he  could,  at  a  semi-poet- 
^  ical,  semi-philosophical  intrepretation  of  life, 
and  to  express  this  as  frankly  as  he  could.  And 
thus  reading  must  be  for  him  an  attempt  to 
refine  and  quicken  his  insight  into  the  human 
mind,  working  in  the  more  delicate  regions  of 
art.  He  must  study  expression  and  personality; 
he  must  keep  his  spirit  sensitive  to  any  hint  of 
truth  or  beauty,  any  generous  and  ardent  intui- 
tion, any  grace  and  seemliness  of  thought.  He 
:^a^§t,ijOXi4,oX books  of  travel,  as  opening  to  him 
a  larger  perspective  of  huijian  life,  and  reveal- 
ing to  him  the  conclusions  to  which  experience 
and  life  had  brought  men  of  other  nationali- 
ties and  other  creeds.  Biography  was  his 
most  beloved  stu^y,  because  it  opened  out 
to  him  the  vast  complexity  of  human  motive ; 
but  he  thought  that  its  chief  value  had  been 
in  revealing  to  him  the  extraordinary  part 
that  conventional  and  adopted  beliefs  and 
motives  played  in  the  majority  of  lives. 

Hi5..imdi,ng,  then,  began  to  have  for  him  a 
ci£gp,5j:jict,special  significance.  He  was  no  philo- 
sopher ;  he  found  that  the  metaphysical  region, 
where  one  stumbled  among  the  dim  ultimate 
causes  of  things,  only  gave  him  a  sense  of 
insecurity  and  despair ;  but  he  was  in  a  sense 
a  psychologist ;  his  experience  of  life  had  taught 


Sweet  Voices  325 

him  to  have  an  inkling  of  the  influences  that 
affect  character,  and  still  more  of  the  stubborn 
power  of  character  in  resisting  influences.  Poet- 
ry was  to  him  a  region  in  which  one  became 
aware  of  strange  and  almost  magical  forces, 
which  came  floating  out  of  unknown  and  mys- 
terious depths — it  was  a  world  of  half-heard 
echoes,  momentary  glimpses,  mysterious  ap- 
peals. In  history  and  in  biography  one  saw  j^ 
more  of  the  interacting  forces  of  temperament ; 
but  in  poetry,  as  the  interpreter  of  nature,  one  |^' 
found  one's  self  among  cries  and  thrills  which 
seemed  to  rise  from  the  inner  heart  of  the  world. 
It  was  the  same  with  religion ;  but  here  the  i^/ 
forces  at  work  so  often  lost  their  delicacy  and 
subtlety  by  being  compounded  with  grosser 
human  influences,  entangled  with  superstitions, 
made  to  serve  low  and  pitiful  ends.  In  poetry 
there  was  none  of  this — it  was  the  most  disin- 
terested thing  in  the  world.  In  the  pure  medium 
of  words,  coloured  by  beauty  and  desire,  all  the 
remote,  holy,  sweet  secrets  of  the  heart  were 
blended  into  a  rising  strain  ;  and  it  was  well  to 
submit  one's  self,  tranquilly  and  with  an  open 
heart,  to  the  calling  of  these  sweet  voices. 

Hugh  was  aware  that  his  view  was  not  what 
would  be  called  a  practical  one ;  that  he  had  no 
fibre  of  his  being  that  responded  to  what  were 
called  civic    claims,  political  urgencies,  social 


326  Beside  Still  Waters 

reforms,  definite  organisations;  he  felt  increas- 
ingly that  these  things  were  but  the  cheerful 
efforts  of  well-meaning  and  hard-headed  persons 
to  deal  with  the  bewildering  problems,  the  un- 
satisfactory debris  of  life.  Hugh  felt  that  the 
only  possible  hope  pf  regeneration  and  uprais- 
ing lay  in  the  individual ;  and  that  if  the  tone 
of  individual  JFeeling  could  be  purified  and 
strengthened,  these  organisations  would  become 
mere  unmeaning  words.  The  things  that  they 
represented  seemed  to  Hugh  unreal  and  even 
contemptible,  the  shadows  cast  on  the  mist  by 
the  evil  selfishnesses,  the  stupid  appetites,  the 
material  hopes  of  men.  As  simplicity  of  life 
and  thought  became  more  and  more  dear  to  him, 
he  began  to  recognise  that,  though  there  was 
no  doubt  room  in  the  world,  as  it  was,  for 
these  other  busy  and  fertile  ideas,  yet  that  his 
own  work  did  not  lie  there.  Rather  it  lay  in 
defining  and  classifying  his  own  life  and  experi- 
ence ;  in  searching  for  indubitable  motives,  and 
noble  possibilities  that  had  almost  the  force  of 
certainties ;  of  gathering  up  the  secrets  of  ex- 
istence, and  speaking  them  as  frankly,  as  ardent- 
ly, as  melodiously  as  his  powers  would  admit,  if 
by  any  means  he  might  awaken  other  hearts  to 
the  truths  which  had  for  him  so  sweet  and  con- 
straining an  influence. 


viV' 


XXXIII 

An  art  which  had  for  Hugh  an  almost  divine 
quality  was  the  art  of  musip  ;  an  art  dependent 
upon  such  frail  natural  causes,  the  vibration  of 
string  and  metal,  yet  upon  the  wings  of  which 
the  soul  could  fly  abroad  further  than  upon  the 
wings  of  any  other  art.  There  was  a  little  vig- 
nette of  Bewick's,  which  he  had  loved  as  a 
child,  where  a  minute  figure  sits  in  a  tiny 
horned  and  winged  car,  in  mid-air,  throwing 
out  with  a  free  gesture  the  reins  attached  to 
the  bodies  of  a  flight  of  cranes;  the  only  sym- 
bol of  his  destination  a  crescent  moon,  shining 
in  dark  skies  beyond  him.  That  picture  had 
always  seemed  to  Hugh  a  parable  of  music, 
that  it  gave  one  power  to  fly  upon  the  regions  of 
the  upper  air,  to  use  the  wings  of  the  morning. 

And  yet,  if  one  analysed  it,  what  a  totally 
inexplicable  pleasure  it  was.  Part  of  it,  the 
orderly  and  rhymthical  beat  of  metre,  such 
as  comes  from  striking  the  fingers  on  the 
table,  or  tapping  the  foot  upon  the  floor  ;  how 
deep  lay  the  instinct  to  bring  into  strict  se- 
327 


328  Beside  Still  Waters 

quence,  where  it  was  possible,  the  mechanical 
movements  of  nature,  the  creaking  of  the 
boughs  of  trees,  the  drip  of  water  from  a  foun- 
tain-lip, the  beat  of  rolling  wheels,  the  recurrent 
song  of  the  thrush  on  the  high  tree ;  and  then 
there  came  the  finer  sense  of  intricate  vibration. 
The  lower  notes  of  great  organ-pipes  had  little 
indeed  but  a  harsh  roar,  that  throbbed  in  the 
leaded  casements  of  the  church ;  but  climbing 
upwards  they  took  shape  in  the  delicate  noises, 
the  sounds  and  sweet  airs  of  which  Prospero's 
magic  isle  was  full.  And  yet  the  rapture  of  it 
was  inexpressible  in  words.  Sometimes  those 
airy  flights  of  notes  seemed  to  stimulate  in  some 
incomprehensible  way  the  deepest  emotions  of 
the  human  spirit ;  not  indeed  the  intellectual 
and  moral  emotions,  but  the  primal  and  ele- 
mental desires  and  woes  of  the  heart. 

Hugh  could  hardly  say  in  what  region  of  the 
soul  this  all  took  place.  It  seemed  indeed  the 
purest  of  all  emotions,  for  the  mind  lost  itself 
in  a  delight  which  hardly  even  seemed  to  be 
sensuous  at  all,  because  in  the  case  of  other 
arts,  one  was  conscious  of  pleasure,  conscious 
of  perception,  of  mingling  identity  with  the 
thing  seen  or  perceived ;  but  in  music  one 
was  rapt  almost  out  of  mortality,  in  a  kind  of 
bodiless  joy. 

One  of  Hugh's  causes  of  dissatisfaction  with 


Music  329 

the  education  he  had  received  was  that,  though 
he  had  a  considerable  musical  gift,  he  had  never 
been  taught  to  play  any  musical  instrument. 
Partly  indolence  and  partly  lack  of  opportunity 
had  prevented  him  from  attaining  any  measure 
of  skill  by  his  own  exertions,  though  he  had 
once  worked  a  little,  very  fitfully,  at  the  theory 
of  music,  and  had  obtained  just  enough  know- 
ledge of  the  composition  of  chords  to  give  him 
an  intelligent  pleasure  in  disentangling  the  ele- 
ments of  simple  progressions.  Another  trifling 
physical  characteristic  had  prevented  his  hear- 
ing as  much  music  as  he  would  have  wished. 
The  presence  of  a  crowd,  the  heat  and  glare  of 
concert-rooms,  the  uncomfortable  proximity  of 
unsympathetic  or  possibly  loquacious  persons, 
combined  with  a  dislike  of  fixed  engagements 
outside  of  the  pressure  of  official  hours  of  work, 
had  kept  him,  very  foolishly,  from  musical  per- 
formances. Thus  almost  the  only  music  with 
which  he  had  a  solid  acquaintance  wasecclesiasti- 
cal  music;  he  had  been  accustomed  as  a  boy  to 
frequent  the  cathedral  services  in  the  town 
where  he  was  at  school ;  and  in  London  he  con- 
stantly went  on  Sundays  to  St,  Paul's  or  West- 
minster. It  was  no  doubt  the  stately  mise-cn- 
scene  of  these  splendid  buildings  that  affected 
Hugh  as  much  even  as  the  music  itself,  though 
the   music  was  like  the  soul's  voice  speaking 


330  Beside  Still  Waters 

gently  from  beautiful  lips.  Hugh  always,  if  he 
could,  approached  St.  Paul's  by  a  narrow  lane 
among  tall  houses,  thaPcame  out  opposite  the 
north  transept.  At  a  certain  place  the  grey 
dome  became  visible,  strangely  foreshortened, 
like  a  bleak  mountain-head,  and  then  there  ap- 
peared, framed  by  the  house-fronts,  the  sculp- 
tured figure  of  the  ancient  lawgiver,  with  a 
gesture  at  once  vehement  and  dignified,  that 
crowded  the  top  of  the  pediment.  Then  fol- 
lowed the  hush  of  the  mighty  church,  the  dumb 
falling  of  many  foot-falls  upon  the  floor,  the 
great  space  of  the  dome,  in  which  the  mist 
seemed  to  float,  the  liberal  curves,  the  firm  pro- 
portions of  arch  and  pillar  ;  the  fallen  daylight 
seemed  to  swim  and  filter  down,  stained  with 
the  tincture  of  dim  hues;  the  sounds  of  the 
busy  city  came  faintly  there,  a  rich  murmur  of 
life  ;  then  the  soft  hum  of  the  solemn  bell  was 
heard,  in  its  vaulted  cupola;  and  then  the  organ 
awoke,  climbing  from  the  depth  of  the  bour- 
don ;  the  movement  of  priestly  figures,  the 
|/  sweet  order  of  the  scene,  the  sense  of  high 
solemnity,  made  a  shrine  for  the  holy  spirit  of 
beauty  to  utter  its  silvery  voice.  In  West- 
minster it  was  different ;  the  richer  darkness, 
the  soaring  arches,  the  closer  span,  the  incredible 
treasure  of  association  and  memory  made  it  a 
more  mysterious  place,  but  the  sound  lacked  the 


church  Music  331 

smothered  remoteness  that  gave  such  a  strange, 
repressed  economy  to  the  music  of  St.  Paul's. 
At  Westminster  it  was  more  cheerful,  more 
tangible,  more  material.  But  the  tranquillising, 
the  inspiring  effect  upon  the  spirit  was  the 
same.  Perhaps  it  was  not  technical  religion  of 
which  Hugh  was  in  search.  But  it  was  the  relig- 
ion which  was  as  high  above  doctrine  and  creed 
and  theology  as  the  stars  were  above  the  clouds. 
The  high  and  holy  spirit  inhabiting  eternity 
seemed  to  emerge  from  the  metaphysic,  the 
science  of  religion,  from  argument  and  strife 
and  dogma,  as  the  moon  wades,  clear  and  cold, 
out  of  the  rack  of  dusky  vapours.  Such  a  voice, 
as  that  gentle,  tender,  melancholy,  and  still 
joyful  voice,  that  speaks  in  the  119th  Psalm, 
telling  of  misunderstanding  and  persecution, 
and  yet  dwelling  in  a  further  region  of  peace, 
came  speeding  into  the  very  labyrinth  of  Hugh's 
troubled  heart.  "  I  have  gone  astray  like  a 
sheep  that  is  lost ;  O  seek  Thy  servant,  for  I  do 
not  forget  Thy  commandments."  It  was  not 
inspiration,  not  a  high-hearted  energy,  that 
music  brought  with  it ;  it  was  rather  a  recon- 
ciliation of  all  that  hurt  or  jarred  the  soul,  an 
earnest  of  intended  peace. 

But,  after  all,  this  was  not  music  pure  and 
simple  ;  it  was  music  set  in  a  rich  frame  of 
both  sensuous  and  spiritual  emotions.    Hugh 


332  Beside  Still  Waters 

realised  that  music  had  never  played  a  large 
part  in  his  life,  but  had  been  one  of  many  artis- 
tic emotions  that  had  spoken  to  him  in  divers 
manners.  There  was  one  fact  about  music 
which  lessened  its  effect  upon  Hugh,  and  that 
was  the  fact  that  it  seemed  to  depend  more  than 
V  other  arts  upon  what  one  brought  to  it.  In  cer- 
tain moods,  particularly  melancholy  moods,  when 
the  spirit  was  fevered  by  dissatisfaction  or  sor- 
row, its  appeal  was  irresistible  ;  it  came  flying 
out  of  the  silence,  like  an  angel  bearing  a  vial 
of  fragrant  blessings.  It  came  flooding  in,  like 
the  cool  brine  over  scorched  sands,  smoothing, 
refreshing,  purifying.  There  seemed  some- 
thing direct,  authentic,  and  divine  about  the 
message  of  music  in  such  moods ;  there  seemed 
no  interfusion  of  human  personality  to  distract, 
because  the  medium  was  more  pure. 

Sometimes,  for  weeks  together  at  Cambridge, 
Hugh  wouldgo  without  hearing  any  music  at  all, 
until  an  almost  physical  thirst  would  fall  upon 
him.  In  such  an  arid  mood,  he  would  find  him- 
self tyrannously  affected  by  any  chance  frag- 
ment of  music  wafted  past  him  ;  he  would  go 
to  some  cheerful  party,  where,  after  the  meal 
was  over,  a  piano  would  be  opened,  and  a  sim- 
ple song  sung  or  a  short  piece  played.  This 
would  come  like  a  draught  of  water  to  a  weary 
traveller,  bearing  Hugh  away  out    of   his  sur- 


Musicians  333 

foundings,  away  from  gossip  and  lively  talk, 
into  a  remote  and  sheltered  place ;  it  was  like , 
opening  a  casement  from  a  familiar  and  lighted 
room,  and  leaning  out  over  a  dim  land,  where 
the  sunset  was  slowly  dying  across  the  rim  of 
the  tired  world. 

Hugh  always  found  it  easy  to  make  friends 
with  musicians.  They  generally  seemed  to  him 
to  be  almost  a  race  apart ;  their  art  seemed  to 
withdraw  them  in  a  curious  way  from  the  world, 
and  to  absorb  into  itself  the  intellectual  vigour 
which  was  as  a  rule,  with  ordinary  men,  distribu- 
ted over  a  variety  of  interests.  He  knew  some 
musicians  who  were  men  of  wide  cultivation,  but 
they  were  very  much  the  exception  ;  as  a  rule, 
they  seemed  to  Hugh  to  be  a  simple,  and  almost 
childlike  species,  fond  of  laughter  and  elemen- 
tary jests,  with  emotions  rather  superficial  than 
deep,  and  not  regarding  life  from  the  ordinary- 
standpoint  at  all.  The  reason  lay,  Hugh  be- 
lieved, in  the  nature  of  the  medium  in  which 
they  worked  ;  the  writer  and  the  artist  were 
brought  into  direct  contact  with  humanity ;  it 
was  their  business  to  interpret  life,  to  investi- 
gate emotion ;  but  the  musician  was  engaged 
with  an  art  that  was  almost  mathematical  in  its 
purity  and  isolation ;  he  worked  under  the  strict- 
est law,  and  though  it  required  a  severe  and 
strong  intellectual  grip,  it  was   not   a   process 


334  Beside  Still  Waters 

which  had  any  connection  with  emotions  or 
.with  life.  But  Hugh  always  felt  himself  to  be 
inside  the  charmed  circle,  and  though  he  knew 
but  little  of  the  art,  musical  talk  always  had  a 
deep  interest  for  him,  and  he  seemed  to  divine 
and  understand  more  than  he  could  explain  or 
express. 

But  still  it  was  true  that  music  had  played 
no  part  in  his  intellectual  development ;  he  had 
never  approached  it  on  that  side  ;  it  had  merely 
ministered  to  him  at  intervals  a  species  of  emo- 
tional stimulus  ;  it  had  seemed  to  him  to  speak 
a  language,  dim  and  unintelligible,  but  the  pur- 
port of  which  he  interpreted  to  be  somehow 
high  and  solemn.  There  seemed  indeed  to  be 
nothing  in  the  world  that  spoke  in  such  myste- 
rious terms  of  an  august  destiny  awaiting  the 
soul.  The  origin,  the  very  elements  of  the  joy 
of  music  were  so  absolutely  inexplicable.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  assignable  cause  for  the  fact 
that  the  mixture  of  rhythmical  progress  and 
natural  vibration  should  have  such  a  singular 
and  magical  power  over  the  human  soul,  and 
affect  it  with  such  indescribable  emotion. 

He  had  sometimes  seen,  half  with  amusement, 
half  with  a  far  deeper  interest,  the  physical  ef- 
fect which  the  music  of  some  itinerant  piano- 
organ  would  produce  upon  street  children ;  they 
seemed  affected  by  some  curious  intoxication  ; 


The  Organ  335 

their  gestures,  their  smiles,  their  self-conscious 
glances,  their  dancing  movements,  so  unnatural 
in  a  sense,  and  yet  so  instinctive,  made  the 
process  appear  almost  magical  in  its  effects. 
Though  it  did  not  affect  him  so  personally,  it 
seemed  to  have  a  similarly  intoxicating  effect 
on  Hugh's  own  mind.  Even  if  the  particular 
piece  that  he  was  listening  to  had  no  appeal  to 
his  spirit,  even  if  it  were  only  a  series  of  lively 
cascades  of  tripping  notes,  his  thoughts,  he 
found,  took  on  an  excited,  an  irrepressible  tinge. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  time  and  the 
mood  were  favourable,  if  the  piece  were  solemn 
or  mournful,  or  of  a  melting  sweetness,  it 
seemed  for  a  moment  to  bring  a  sense  of  true 
values  into  life,  to  make  him  feel,  by  a  silent 
inspiration,  the  rightness  and  the  perfection  of 
the  scheme  of  the  world. 

One  evening  a  friend  of  Hugh's,  who  was  or- 
ganist of  one  of  the  important  college  chapels, 
took  him  and  a  couple  of  friends  into  the  build- 
ing. It  had  been  a  breathlessly  hot  summer 
day,  but  the  air  inside  had  a  coolness  and  peace 
which  revived  the  languid  frame.  It  was  nearly 
dark,  but  the  great  windows  smouldered  with 
deep  fiery  stains,  and  showed  here  and  there  a 
pale  face,  or  the  outline  of  a  mysterious  form, 
or  an  intricacy  of  twined  tabernacle-work. 
Only  a  taper  or  two  were  lit  in  the  shadowy 


336  Beside  Still  Waters 

choir ;  and  a  light  in  the  organ-loft  sent  strange 
shadows,  a  waving  hand  or  a  gigantic  arm,  across 
the  roof,  while  the  quiet  movements  of  the 
player  were  heard  from  time  to  time,  the  pas- 
sage of  his  feet  across  the  gallery,  or  the  rustling 
of  the  leaves  of  a  book.  Hugh  and  his  friends 
seated  themselves  in  the  stalls  ;  and  then  for  an 
hour  the  great  organ  uttered  its  voice — now  a 
soft  and  delicate  strain,  a  lonely  flute  or  a  lan- 
guid reed  outlining  itself  upon  the  movement 
of  the  accompaniment ;  or  at  intervals  the  sym- 
phony worked  up  to  a  triumphant  outburst,  the 
trumpets  crashing  upon  the  air,  and  a  sudden 
thunder  outrolling ;  the  great  pedals  seeming  to 
move,  like  men  walking  in  darkness,  treading 
warily  and  firmly ;  until  the  whole  ended  with 
a  soft  slow  movement  of  perfect  simplicity  and 
tender  sweetness,  like  the  happy  dying  of  a  very 
old  and  honourable  person,  who  has  drunk  his 
fill  of  life  and  blessings,  and  closes  his  eyes  for 
very  weariness  and  gladness,  upon  labour  and 
praise  alike. 

The  only  shadow  of  this  beautiful  hour  was 
that  inJ:Jliis_rapt  space  of  tranquil  reflection  one 
seemed  to  have  harmonised  and  explained  llTe, 
joy,  and  disaster  alike,  to  have  wound  up  a  clue, 
to  have  brought  it  all  to  a  peaceful  and  perfect 
climax  of  silence,  like  a  tale  that  is  told  ;  and 
then  it  was  necessary  to  go  out   to   the   world 


False  Asceticism  337 

again  with  all  its  bitterness,  its  weariness,  and 
its  dissatisfaction — till  one  almost  wondered 
whether  it  was  wise  or  brave  to  have  chased 
and  captured  this  strange  phantom  of  imagined 
peace. 

Yes,  it  was  wise  sometimes,  Hugh  felt  sure! 
to  have  refused  it  would  have  been  like  refus- 
ing to  drink  from  a  cool  and  bubbling  way- 
side spring,  as  one  fared  on  a  hot  noon  over 
the  shimmering  mountain-side — refused,  in  a 
spirit  of  false  austerity,  for  fear  that  one  would 
thirst  again  through  the  dreary  leagues  ahead. 
As  long  as  one  remembered  that  it  was  but  an 
imagined  peace,  that  one  had  not  attained  it,  it 
was  yet  well  to  remember  that  the  peace  was 
real,  that  it  existed  somewhere,  even  though  it 
was  still  shut  within  the  heart  of  God.  How- 
ever slow  the  present  progress,  however  long  the 
road,  it  was  possible  to  look  forward  in  hope,  to 
know  that  one  would  move  more  blithely  and 
firmly  when  the  time  should  come  for  the  de- 
sired peace  to  be  given  one  more  abundantly; 
it  helped  one,  as  one  stumbled  and  lingered,  to 
look  a  little  further  on  and  to  say,  "I  will  run 
the  way  of  Thy  commandments,  when  Thou 
hast  set  my  heart  at  liberty." 


XXXIV 

Hugh's  professional  life  had  given  him 
little  opportunity  for  indulging  artistic  tastes. 
He  had  been  very  fond  as  a  boy  of  sketching, 
especially  architectural'subjects  ;  it  had  trained 
his  poweris  of  observation  ;  but  there  had  come 
a  time  when,  as  a  young  man,  he  had  deliber- 
ately laid  his  sketching  aside.  The  idea  in  his 
mind  had  been  that  if  one  desired  to  excel 
in  any  form  of  artistic  expression,  one  must  de- 
vote all  one's  artistic  faculty  to  that.  He  had 
been  conscious  of  a  certain  diffuseness  of 
taste,  a  love  of  music  and  a  love  of  pictorial 
art  being  both  strong  factors  in  his  mind ; 
but  he  was  also  dimly  conscious  that  he 
matured  slowly ;  that  he  had  none  of  the  facile 
grasp  of  difficult  things  which  characterised 
some  of  his  more  able  companions  ;  his  progress 
was  always  slow,  and  he  arrived  at  mastery 
through  a  long  wrestling  with  inaccuracy  and 
half  knowledge  ;  his  perception  was  quick,  but 
his  grasp  feeble,  while  his  capacity  for  forgetting 
and  losing  his  hold  on  things  was  great.  He 
338 


Pictorial  Art  339 

therefore  made  a  deliberate  choice  in  the  mat- 
ter, guided,  he  now  felt,  rather  by  a  kind  of 
intuition  than  by  any  very  definite  principle, 
and  determined  to  restrict  his  artistic  energies 
to  a  single  form  of  art.  His  father,  he  remem- 
bered, had  remonstrated  with  him,  and  had  said 
that  by  giving  up  sketching  he  was  sacrificing 
a  great  resource  of  recreation  and  amusement. 
He  had  no  answer  at  the  time  to  the  criticism, 
but  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  knew  his  own 
mind  in  the  matter,  and  that  as  he  could  not 
hope,  he  thought,  to  attain  to  any  real  excel- 
lence in  draughtsmanship,  it  had  better  be 
cut  off  altogether,  and  his  energies,  such  as 
they  were — he  knew  that  the  spring  was 
not  a  copious  one — confined  to  a  more  definite 
channel. 

As  life  went  on,  and  as  time  became  more  and 
more  precious,  as  his  literary  work  more  and 
more  absorbed  him,  he  drew  away  from  the 
artistic  region  ;  in  his  early  years  of  manhood 
he  had  travelled  a  good  deal,  and  the  seeing  of 
pictures  had  always  been  part  of  the  pro- 
gramme ;  but  his  work  became  heavier,  and  the 
holidays  had  tended  more  and  more  to  be  spent 
in  some  quiet  English  retreat,  where  he  could 
satisfy  his  delight  in  nature,  and  re-read  some 
of  the  old  beloved  books.  A  certain  physical 
indolence  was  also  a  factor,  an  indolence  which 


340  Beside  Still  Waters 

made  wandering  in  a  picture-gallery  always 
rather  a  penance  ;  but  he  contrived  at  intervals 
to  go  and  look  at  pictures  in  London  in  a  lei- 
surely way,  both  old  and  new ;  and  he  had  one  or 
two  friends  who  possessed  fine  works  of  art, 
which  could  be  enjoyed  calmly  and  quietly. 
He  was  aware  that  he  was  losing  some  catholi- 
city of  mind  by  this — but  he  knew  his  limita- 
tions, and  more  and  more  became  aware  that 
his  constitutional  energy  was  not  very  great, 
and  needed  to  be  husbanded.  He  was  quite 
aware  that  he  was  not  what  would  be  called  a 
cultivated  person,  that  his  knowledge  both  of 
art  and  music  was  feeble  and  amateurish ;  but 
he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  that  people  of  wide 
cultivation  often  sacrificed  in  intensity  what 
they  gained  in  width ;  and  as  he  became  gradually 
aware  that  the  strongest  faculty  he  possessed 
was  the  literary  faculty,  he  saw  that  he  could 
not  hope  to  nourish  it  without  a  certain  renun- 
ciation. He  had  no  taste  for  becoming  an 
expert  or  a  connoisseur ;  he  had  not  the  slighest 
wish  to  instruct  other  people,  or  to  arrive  at 
a  technical  and  professional  knowledge  of  art. 
He  was  content  to  leave  it  to  be  a  rare  luxury, 
a  thing  which,  when  the  opportunity  and  the 
mood  harmonised,  could  open  a  door  for  him 
into  a  beautiful  world  of  dreams.  He  was  quite 
aware  that  he  often  liked  what  would  be  called 


Hand  and  Soul  341 

the  wrong  things  ;  but  what  he  was  on  the  look- 
out for  in  art  was  not  technical  perfection  or 
finished  skill,  but  a  certain  indefinable  poet- 
ical suggestion,  which  pictures  could  give  him, 
when  they  came  before  him  in  certain  moods. 
The  mood,  indeed,  mattered  more  than  the 
picture ;  moreover  it  was  one  of  the  strangest 
things  about  pictorial  art,  that  the  work  of  cer- 
tain artists  seemed  able  to  convey  poetical  sug- 
gestion, even  when  the  poetical  quality  seemed 
to  be  absent  from  their  own  souls.  He  knew  a 
certain  great  artist  well,  who  seemed  to  Hugh 
to  be  an  essentially  materialistic  man,  fond  of 
sport  and  society,  of  money,  and  the  pleasures 
that  money  could  buy,  who  spoke  of  poetical 
emotion  as  moonshine,  and  seemed  frankly 
bored  by  any  attempt  at  the  mystical  apprehen- 
sion of  beautiful  things,  who  could  yet  produce, 
by  means  of  his  mastery  of  the  craft,  pictures 
full  of  the  tenderest  and  loveliest  emotion  and 
poetry.  Hugh  tried  hard  to  discern  this  quality 
in  the  man's  soul,  tried  to  believe  that  it  was 
there,  and  that  it  was  deliberately  disguised  by 
a  pose  of  blufl  unaffectedness.  But  he  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  was  not  there,  and  that 
the  painter  achieved  his  results  only  by  being 
able  to  represent  with  incredible  fidelity  the 
things  in  nature  that  held  the  poetical  quality. 
On  the  other  hand  he  had  a  friend  of  real  poet- 


342  Beside  Still  Waters 

ical  genius,  who  was  also  an  artist,  but  who 
could  only  produce  the  stiffest  and  hardest 
works  of  art,  that  had  no  quality  about  them 
except  the  quality  of  tiresome  definiteness.  This 
was  a  great  mystery  to  Hugh ;  but  it  ended 
eventually,  after  a  serious  endeavour  to  appre- 
ciate what  was  approved  by  the  general  verdict 
to  be  of  supreme  artistic  value,  in  making  him 
resolve  that  he  would  just  follow  his  own  inde- 
pendent taste,  and  discern  whatever  quality  of 
beauty  he  could,  in  such  art  as  made  an  appeal 
to  him.  Thus  he  was  not  even  an  eclectic ; 
he  was  a  mere  amateur;  he  treated  art  just  as  a 
possible  vehicle  of  the  poetical  suggestion, 
and  allowed  it  to  speak  to  him  when  and 
where  it  could  and  would. 

He  had  moreover  a  great  suspicion  of  con- 
ventionality in  taste.  A  man  of  accredited 
taste  often  seemed  to  him  little  more  than  a 
man  who  had  the  faculty  of  admiring  what  it 
was  the  fashion  to  admire.  Hugh  had  been  for 
a  short  time  under  the  influence  of  Ruskin,  and 
had  tried  sincerely  to  see  the  magnificence  of 
Turner,  and  to  loathe  the  artificiality  of  Claude 
Lorraine.  But  when  he  arrived  at  his  more 
independent  attitude,  he  found  that  there  was 
much  to  admire  in  Claude;  that  exquisite 
golden  atmosphere,  syfTusing  a  whole  picture 
with  an  evening  glow,  enriching  the  lavish  fore- 


Turner  343 

ground,  and  touching  into  romantic  beauty 
headland  after  headland,  that  ran  out,  covered 
with  delicate  woodland,  into  the  tranquil  lake  ; 
those  ruinous  temples  with  a  quiet  flight  of 
birds  about  them ;  the  mysterious  figures  of 
men  emerging  from  the  woods  on  the  edges 
of  the  water,  bent  serenely  on  some  simple  busi- 
ness, had  the  magical  charm  ;  and  then  those 
faint  mountains  closing  the  horizon,  all  rounded 
with  the  golden  haze  of  evening,  seemed  to 
hold,  in  their  faintly  indicated  heights  and 
folds,  a  delicate  peace,  a  calm  repose,  as  though 
glad  just  to  be,  just  to  wait  in  that  reposeful 
hour  for  the  quiet  blessing  of  waning  light, 
the  sober  content  so  richly  shed  abroad.  It 
was  not  criticism,  Hugh  thought,  to  say  that  it 
was  all  impossibly  combined,  falsely  conceived. 
It  was  not,  perhaps,  a  transcript  of  any  one 
place  or  one  hour ;  but  it  had  an  inner  truth 
for  all  that ;  it  had  the  spirit  of  evening  with 
its  pleasant  weariness,  its  gentle  recollection,  its 
waiting  for  repose ;  or  it  had  again  the  fresh- 
ness of  the  morning,  the  vital  hope  that  makes 
it  delightful  to  rise,  to  cast  off  sleep,  to  go 
abroad,  making  light  of  the  toil  and  heat  that 
the  day  is  to  bring. 

And  then,  in  studying  Turner,  he  learned  to 
see  that,  lying  intermingled  ^tlr~all  the  power 
and  nobility  of  much  of  his  work,  there  was  a 


344  Beside  Still  Waters 

displeasing  extravagance,  a  violence,  a  faulti- 
ness  of  detail,  an  exaggeration  that  often  ruined 
his  pictures.  Neither  he  nor  Glaude  were  true 
to  life  ;  but  there  was  an  insolence  sometimes 
about  Turner's  variation  from  fact,  which  made 
him  shudder.  How  he  seemed  sometimes,  in 
his  pictures  of  places  familiar  to  Hugh — such, 
for  instance,  as  the  drawing  of  Malham  Cove — 
to  miss,  by  his  heady  violence,  all  the  real,  the 
essential  charm  of  the  place.  Nature  was  not 
what  Turner  depicted  it ;  and  he  did  not  even 
develop  and  heighten  its  beauty,  but  substi- 
tuted for  the  real  charm  an  almost  grotesque 
personal  mannerism.  Turner's  idea  of  nature 
seemed  to  Hugh  often  purely  theatrical  and 
melo-dramatic,  wanting  in  restraint,  in  repose. 
The  appeal  of  Turner  seemed  to  him  to  be 
constantly  an  appeal  to  childish  and  unpercep- 
tive  minds,  that  could  not  notice  a  thing  unless 
it  was  forced  upon  them.  Some  of  the  earlier 
pictures  indeed,  such  as  that  of  the  frost-bound 
lane,  with  the  boy  blowing  on  his  fingers,  and  the 
horses  nibbling  at  the  stiff  grass,  with  the  cold 
light  of  the  winter's  dawn  coming  slowly  up 
beyond  the  leafless  hedge,  seemed  to  him  to  be 
perfectly  beautiful ;  but  the  Turner  of  the  later 
period,  the  Turner  so  wildly  upheld  by  Ruskin, 
seemed  to  Hugh  to  have  lost  sight  of  nature,  in 
the  pleasure  of  constructing  extravagant  and 


Pictures  with  a  Message        345 

fantastic  schemes  of  colour.  The  true  art 
seemed  to  Hugh  not  to  be  the  art  that  trumpets 
beauty  aloud,  and  that  drags  a  spectator  rough- 
ly to  admire ;  but  the  art  that  waits  quietly 
for  the  sincere  nature-lover,  and  gives  a  soft  hint 
to  which  the  soul  of  the  spectator  can  add  its 
own  emotion.  To  Hugh  it  was  much  a  matter 
of  mood.  He  would  go  to  a  gallery  of  ancient 
or  modern  art,  and  find  that  there  many 
pictures  had  no  message  or  voice  for  him  ;  and 
then  some  inconspicuous  picture  would  sudden- 
ly appeal  to  him  with  a  mysterious  force — the 
pathetic  glance  of  childish  eyes,  or  an  old  face 
worn  by  toil  and  transfigured  by  some  inner  light 
of  hopefulness  ;  ora  woodland  scene,  tree-trunks 
rising  amid  a  copse ;  or  the  dark  water  of  a  sea- 
cave,  lapping,  translucent  and  gem-like,  round 
rock  ledges  ;  or  a  reedy  pool,  with  the  chimneys 
of  an  old  house  rising  among  the  elms  hard  by  ; 
in  a  moment  the  mood  would  come  upon  him, 
and  he  would  feel  that  a  door  had  been  opened 
for  his  spirit  into  a  place  of  sweet  imaginings, 
of  wistful  peace,  bringing  to  him  a  hope  of 
something  that  might  assuredly  be,  some  deep 
haven  of  God  where  the  soul  might  float  upon 
a  golden  tide.  One  day,  for  instance,  two  old 
line-engravings  of  Italian  pictures  which  he  had 
inherited,  and  which  hung  in  his  little  library, 
gave  him  this  sense ;  he  had  known  them  ever 


34^  Beside  Still  Waters 

since  he  was  a  child,  and  they  had  never  spoken 
to  him  before.  Had  they  hung  all  these  years 
patiently  waiting  for  that  moment  ?  One  was 
The  Betrothal  of  the  Virgin,  by  Raphael, 
where  the  old  bearded  priest  in  his  tiara,  with 
his  robes  girt  precisely  about  him,  casts  an  in- 
quiring look  on  the  pair,  as  Joseph,  a  worn, 
majestic  figure,  puts  the  ring  on  the  Virgin's 
finger.  Some  of  it  was  hard  and  formal  enough  ; 
the  flowers  on  Joseph's  rod  might  have  been 
made  of  china;  the  slim  figure  of  the  disap- 
pointed suitor,  breaking  his  staff,  had  an  unpleas- 
ingtrimness  ;  and  the  companions  of  the  Virgin 
were  models  of  feeble  serenity.  But  the  great 
new  octagonal  temple  in  the  background, — an 
empty  place  it  seemed — for  the  open  doors 
gave  a  glimpse  of  shadowy  ranges — the  shallow 
steps,  the  stone  volutes,  the  low  hills  behind, 
with  the  towered  villa — even  the  beggars  beg- 
ging of  the  richly  dressed  persons  on  the  new- 
laid  pavement — all  these  had  a  sudden  appeal 
for  him. 

The  other  picture  was  the  Communion  of 
Jerome,  by  Domenichino  —  a  stiff,  conven- 
tional design  enough.  The  cherubs  hanging 
in  air  might  have  been  made  of  wax  or  even 
metal — there  was  no  aerial  quality  about  them — 
they  cumbered  the  place  !  But  the  wistful  look 
of  the  old  worn  saint,  kneeling  so  faintly,  so 


Secrets  of  Art  347 

wearily,  the  pure  lines  of  the  shrine,  the  wax- 
lights,  the  stiff  robes  of  the  priest,  the  open 
arch  showing  an  odd,  clustered,  castellated 
house,  rising  on  its  steep  rocks  among  dark 
brushwood,  with  a  glimmering  pool  below,  and 
mysterious  persons  drawing  near — it  all  had  a 
tyrannical  effect  on  Hugh's  mind.  Probably  a 
conventional  critic  would  have  spoken  approv- 
ingly of  the  Raphael  and  disdainfully  enough 
of  the  Domenichino — but  the  point  to  Hugh 
was  not  in  the  art  revealed,  but  in  the  associa- 
tion, the  remoteness,  the  suggestiveness  of  the 
pictures.  The  faults  of  each  were  patent  to 
him ;  but  something  in  that  moment  shone 
through  ;  one  looked  through  a  half-open  door, 
and  saw  some  beautiful  mystery  being  cele- 
brated within,  something  that  one  could  not 
explain  or  analyse,  but  which  was  none  the  less 
certainly  there. 

Thus  art  became  to  Hugh,  like  nature,  an 
echoing  world  that  lay  all  about  him,  which 
could  suddenly  become  all  alive  with  constrain- 
ing desire  and  joy.  There  was  a  scientific  ap- 
prehension of  both  nature  and  art  possible,  no 
doubt.  The  very  science  that  lay  behind  art 
had  a  suggestiveness  of  its  own  ;  that  again 
had  its  own  times  for  appeal.  But  Hugh  felt 
that  here  again  he  must  realise  his  limitations, 
and  that  life,  to  be  real,  must  be  a  constant  re- 


348  Beside  Still  Waters 

sisting  of  diffuse  wanderings  in  knowledge  and 
perception.  That  his  own  medium  was  the 
medium  of  words,  and  that  his  task  was  to 
discern  their  colour  and  weight,  their  signifi- 
cance, whether  alone  or  in  combination  ;  that 
he  must  be  able  to  upraise  the  jointed  fabric  of 
thought,  like  a  framework  of  slim  rods  of  firm 
metal,  not  meant  to  be  seen  or  even  realised  by 
the  reader,  but  which,  when  draped  with  the 
rich  tapestry  of  words,  would  lend  shape  and 
strong  coherence  to  the  whole.  All  other  art 
must  simply  minister  light  and  fragrance ;  it 
might  be  studied,  indeed,  but  easily  and  super- 
ficially; not  that  it  would  not  be  better,  per- 
haps, if  he  could  have  approached  other  arts 
with  penetrating  insight ;  but  that  he  felt  that 
for  himself,  with  his  limitations,  his  feebleness, 
his  faltering  grasp,  nothing  must  come  between 
him  and  his  literary  preoccupation.  The  other 
arts  might  feed  his  soul  indeed,  but  he  could 
not  serve  them.  He  found  that  he  took  great 
delight,  and  was  always  at  ease,  in  the  company 
of  musicians  and  painters,  because  he  could 
understand  and  interpret  their  point  of  view, 
their  attitude  of  mind  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  could  approach  them  with  the  humility,  the 
perceptive  humility,  which  the  artist  desires  as 
an  atmosphere  ;  he  did  not  know  enough  about 
the  technical  points  to  controvert  and  differ. 


Secrets  of  Art  349 

while  he  knew  enough  to  feel  inspired  by  the 
tense  feeling  of  secrets,  understood  and  prac- 
tised, which  were  yet  hidden  from  ordinary 
eyes.  Art,  then,  and  music  became  for  Hugh 
as  a  sweet  and  remote  illustration  of  his  own 
consecration — and  indeed  there  were  moments 
when,  wearied  by  his  own  strenuous  toil,  plough- 
ing sadly  through  the  dreary  sands  of  labour, 
that  must  close  at  intervals  round  the  feet  of 
the  serious  craftsman,  the  sight  of  a  picture 
hanging  perhaps  in  a  room  full  of  cheerful  com- 
pany, or  the  sound  of  music — a  few  bars  rippling 
from  an  open  window,  or  stealing  in  faint  gusts 
from  the  buttressed  window  of  a  church  lighted 
for  even  song — came  to  him  like  a  sacred  cup, 
carried  in  the  hovering  hands  of  a  ministering 
angel,  revealing  to  him  the  delicate  hidden  joy 
of  beauty  of  which  he  had  almost  lost  sight  in 
his  painful  hurrying  to  some  appointed  end. 
Hinc  lucetn  et  pocnla  sacra,  said  the  old  motto 
of  Cambridge.  The  light  was  clear  enough, 
and  led  him  forward,  as  it  led  the  pilgrim  of  old, 
shining  across  a  very  wide  field.  But  the  holy 
refreshment  that  was  tendered  him  upon  the 
way,  this  was  the  blessed  gift  of  those  other 
arts  which  he  dared  not  to  follow,  but  which 
he  knew  held  within  themselves  secrets  as  dear 
as  the  art  which  in  his  loneliness  he  pursued.  ,  -A 


-fW 


XXXV 

Hugh  had  found  himself  one  evening  in  the 
Combination-room  of  his  college,  in  a  little 
group  of  Dons  who  were  discussing  with  great 
subtlety  and  ardour  the  question  of  retaining 
Greek  in  the  entrance  examinations  of  the  uni- 
versity. It  seemed  to  Hugh  that  the  argu- 
ments employed  must  be  identical  with  those 
that  might  formerly  have  been  used  to  justify 
the  retention  of  Hebrew  in  the  curriculum 
— the  advisability  of  making  acquaintance  at 
first  hand  with  a  noble  literature,  the  mental 
discipline  to  be  obtained  ;  "  Greek  has  such  a 
noble  grammar  !  "  said  one  of  these  enthusiasts. 
Hugh  grew  a  little  nettled  at  the  tone  of  the 
discussion.  The  defenders  of  Greek  seemed 
to  be  so  impervious  to  facts  which  told  against 
them.  They  erected  their  theories,  like  um- 
brellas, over  their  heads,  and  experience  pat- 
tered harmlessly  on  the  top.  Hugh  advanced 
his  own  case  as  an  instance  of  the  failure,  of 
the  melancholy  results  of  a  classical  curriculum. 
It  was  deplorable,  he  said,  that  he  should  have 
350 


Artistic  Susceptibility         35 ^ 

realised,  as  he  did  when  he  left  the  university, 
that  his  real  education  had  then  to  begin.  He 
had  found  himself  totally  ignorant  of  modern 
languages  and  modern  history,  of  science,  and 
indeed  of  all  the  ideas  with  which  the  modern 
world  was  teeming.  The  chief  defender  of 
Greek  told  him  blithely  that  he  was  indulging 
the  utilitarian  heresy;  that  the  object  of  his 
education  had  been  to  harden  and  perfect  his 
mind,  so  as  to  make  it  an  instrument  capable 
of  subtle  appreciation  and  ardent  self-improve- 
ment. When  Hugh  pleaded  the  case  of  the 
immense  numbers  of  boys  who,  after  they  had 
been  similarly  perfected  and  hardened,  had 
been  left,  not  only  ignorant  of  what  they 
had  been  supposed  to  be  acquiring,  but  with- 
out the  slightest  interest  in  or  appreciation  of 
intellectual  or  artistic  ideas  at  all,  he  was  told 
that,  bad  as  their  case  was,  it  would  have  been 
still  worse  if  they  had  not  been  subjected  to 
the  refining  process.  Hugh,  contrary  to  his 
wont,  indulged  in  a  somewhat  vehement  tirade 
against  the  neglect  of  the  appreciative  and 
artistic  faculties  in  the  case  of  the  victims  of 
a  classical  education.  He  maintained  that  the 
theory  of  mental  discipline  was  a  false  one 
altogether,  and  that  boys  ought  to  be  prepared 
on  the  one  hand  for  practical  life,  and  on  the 
other  initiated  into  mental  culture.     He  com- 


352  Beside  Still  Waters 

pared  the  mental  condition  of  a  robust  English 
boy,  his  sturdy  disbelief  in  intellectual  things, 
with  the  case  of  a  young  Athenian,  who  was,  if 
we  could  trust  Plato,  naturally  and  sponta- 
neously interested  in  thoughts  and  ideas,  sensi- 
tive to  beautiful  impressions,  delicate,  subtle, 
intelligent,  and  not  less  bodily  active.  He  went 
on  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country, 
and  to  attack  the  theory  of  mental  discipline 
altogether,  which  he  maintained  was  the  same 
thing  as  to  train  agricultural  labourers  in  high- 
jumping  and  sprinting,  or  like  trying  to  put  a 
razor-edge  on  a  hoe.  What  he  said  was  neg- 
lected altogether  was  the  cultivation  of  artistic 
susceptibility.  In  nature,  in  art,  in  literature, 
he  maintained,  lay  an  immense  possibility  of 
refined  and  simple  pleasure,  which  was  never 
cultivated  at  all.  The  mental  discipline,  he 
argued,  which  average  boys  received,  was 
doubly  futile,  because  it  neither  equipped  them 
for  practical  life  nor  opened  to  them  any  vista 
of  intellectual  or  artistic  pleasure.  What  he 
himself  desired  to  do  was,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
equip  boys  for  practical  life,  and  on  the  other 
to  initiate  them  into  the  possibilities  of  in- 
tellectual recreation.  The  ordinary  boy,  he 
thought,  was  turned  out  with  a  profound  dis- 
belief in  intellectual  things,  and  a  no  less 
profound  belief  in  games  as  the  only  source  of 


Artistic  Susceptibility         353 

rational  pleasure.  His  own  belief  was  that  a 
great  many  English  boys  had  the  germs  of 
simple  artistic  pleasures  dormant  in  their 
spirits,  and  that  they  might  be  encouraged  to 
believe  in  books,  in  art,  in  music,  as  sources  of 
tranquil  enjoyment,  instead  of  regarding  them 
as  slightly  unwholesome  and  affected  tastes. 
He  was  aware  that  his  views  were  being 
regarded  as  dangerously  heterodox,  and  as 
tainted  indeed  with  a  kind  of  aesthetic  languor. 
He  felt  that  he  was  appearing  to  pose  as  the 
champion,  not  only  of  an  unpopular  cause,  but 
of  an  essentially  effeminate  system.  His  oppon- 
ents were  certainly  not  effeminate  ;  but  they 
were  masculine  only  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
soldier  is  masculine,  in  his  sturdy  contempt  for 
the  arts  of  peace  ;  whereas  to  Hugh  the  soldier 
was  only  an  inevitable  excrescence  on  the  com- 
munity, a  disagreeable  necessity  which  would 
disappear  in  the  light  of  a  rational  and  humane 
civilisation. 

A  young  Don,  a  friend  of  Hugh's,  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  discussion,  a  few  days  after, 
in  the  course  of  a  walk,  attacked  Hugh  on  the 
subject.  Hugh  was  aware  that  he  defended 
himself  very  indifferently  at  the  time ;  but 
some  remarks  of  his  friend,  who  was  a  brisk 
and  practical  young  man  with  a  caustic  wit, 
rankled   in  Hugh's  mind.     His  friend  had  said 

»3 


/ 


V 


354  Beside  Still  Waters 

that  the  danger  of  Hugh's  scheme  was  that  it 
tended  to  produce  people  of  the  Maudle  and 
Postlethwaite  type,  who  made  life  into  a  mere 
pursuit  of  artistic  impressions  and  sensations. 
"  The  fact  is,  Neville,"  he  said,  "  that  you  up- 
held Epicureanism  pure  and  simple ;  or,  if  you 
dislike  the  word  because  of  its  associations, 
you  taught  a  mere  Neo-Cyrenaicism.  You  may 
say  that  the  kind  of  pleasure  you  defended  is  a 
refined  and  intellectual  sort  of  pleasure,  but  for 
all  that  it  tends  to  produce  men  who  withdraw 
from  practical  life  into  a  mild  hedonism  ;  you 
would  develop  a  coterie  of  amiable,  secluded 
persons,  fastidious  and  delicate,  indifferent  citi- 
zens, individualistic  and  self-absorbed ;  the  train- 
ing of  character  retires  into  the  background  ; 
and  the  meal  that  you  press  upon  us  is  a  meal 
of  exquisite  sauces,  but  without  meat.  Fortu- 
nately," his  friend  added,  "  the  necessity  of 
earning  a  living  keeps  most  people  from  drifting 
into  a  life  of  this  kind.  It  is  only  consistent 
with  comfortable  private  means." 

These  phrases  stuck  in  Hugh's  memory  with 
a  painful  insistence.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  been 
rolled  among  thorns.  He  determined  to  think 
the  matter  carefully  out.  Was  he  himself  drift- 
ing into  a  species  of  m^sticaljjedon ism  ?  It  was 
very  far  from  his  purpose  to  do  that.  He  de- 
termined that  he  would  prepare  a  little  apologia 


An  Apologia  355 

on  the  subject,  to  send  to  his  friend  ;  and  this 
was  what  he  eventually  despatched : 

"  Your  conversation  with  me  the  other  day  gave 
me  a  good  deal  to  think  about.  What  you  said 
practically  amounted  to  a  charge  of  hedonism. 
Of  course  much  depends  upon  the  way  In  which 
the  word  is  applied,  because  I  suppose  that  the 
large  majorit^of  m^e^i  are  hedonists,  in  the  sense  ^ 
tJtat  they  pursue  as  far^ds~possifle  their  own  v 
pleasure.  But  the  particular  kind  of  hedonism. 
of  which  you  spoke,  Epicureanism^  bears  the 
sense  of  a  certain  degree  of  malingering.  It  im- 
plies tJiat  the  person  who  pursues  the  course 
which  I  indicated  is  for  some  reason  or  other 
shirkinghis  duty  in_the  world.  It  is  against 
this  that  I  wish  to  defend  myself ;  I  would  say 
in  the  first  place  that  %vhat  I  was  recommending 
was  a  very  different  sort  of  thing.  I  was  rather 
attacking  a  certain  sheepishncss  of  character  V 
which  seems  to  tne  to  be  the  danger  of  our  present 
education.  The  practical  ideal  held  up  before 
boys  at  our  public  schools  is  that  they  should  be 
virtuous  and  industrious ;  and  that  after  they 
have  satisfied  both  these  claims,  they  should  amtise 
themselves  in  what  is  held  to  be  a  manly  way; 
they  should  fill  their  vacant  hours  with  open-air 
exercise  and  talk  about  games  ;  a  little  light 
reading    is   7iot   objected  to ;    but   it  is  tacitly 


356  Beside  Still  Waters 

assumed  that  to  be  interested  in  ideas,  in  litera- 
ture, art,  and  music  is  rather  a  dilettante 
business.  I  was  reminded  of  a  memorable  conver- 
sation I  once  had  with  a  man  of  some  note,  a 
great  landowner  and  prominent  politician.  He 
zvas  talking  confidentially  to  m,e  about  his  sons 
and  their  professions.  One  of  the  boys  mani- 
fested a  really  remarkable  artistic  gift ;  he  was 
a  draughtsman  of  extraordinary  skill,  and  I  said 
something  about  his  taking  up  art  seriously.  The 
great  man  said  that  it  would  never  do.  '  I  con- 
sider it  almost  a  misfortune , '  he  added,  *  that 
the  boy  is  so  clever  an  artist,  because  it  would 
be  out  of  the  question  for  him,  in  his  position,  to 
take  up  what  is,  after  all,  rather  a  disreputable 
profession.  I  have  talked  to  him  seriously  about 
it,  and  I  have  said  that  there  is  no  harm  in  his 
amusing  himself  in  that  way  ;  but  he  must  have 
a  serious  occupation.' 

"  That  is  a  very  fair  instable e  of  the  way  in 
which  the  pursuit  of  art  is  regarded  amo7tg  our 
solid  classes — as  distinctly  a  trade  for  an  adven- 
turer. It  will  be  a  long  time  before  we  alter 
that.  But  the  truth  is  that  this  kind  of  conven- 
tionalism- is  what  fnakes  us  so  stupid  a  nation. 
We  have  no  sort  of  taste  for  simplicity  in  life. 
A  man  who  lived  in  a  cottage,  occupied  in  quiet 
and  intellectual  pursuits,  would  be  held  to  be  a 
failure,  even  if  he  lived  in  innocent  happiness 


An  Educative  Process        357 

to  the  age  of  eighty.  My  own  firm  belief  is  that 
this  is  all  wrong.  It  opens  up  all  sorts  of  obscure 
aud  bewildering  questions  as  to  why  we  are  sent 
into  the  world  at  all ;  but  my  idea  is  that  we 
are  meant  to  be  happy  if  we  can,  and  that  a 
great  many  people  miss  happiness,  because  they 
have  not  the  courage  to  pursue  it  in  their  own 
way.  I  cannot  believe  myself  that  the  compli- 
cated creature,  so  frail  of  fratne,  so  limitless  in 
dreams  and  hopes,  is  the  result  of  a  vortex.  I 
cannot  believe  that  we  can  be  created  except  by 
a  poiver  that  in  a  certain  degree  resembles  our- 
selves. If  we  have  remote  dreams  of  love  and 
liberty,  of  justice  and  truth,  I  believe  that  those 
ideas  -must  exist  in  a  sublime  degree  in  the  mind 
of  our  Maker.  I  believe,  on  the  whole,  though 
there  are  many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the 
theory,  that  life  is  meant  for  most  of  us  to  be  an 
educative  process  ;  that  we  are  tneant  to  quit  the 
world  wiser y  nobler,  more  patient  than  we  en- 
tered it ;  why  the  whole  business  is  so  intolerably 
slow,  why  we  are  so  hampered  by  traditions  and 
instincts  that  retard  the  process,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive ;  but  my  belief  is  that  we  must  as  far  as 
possible  choose  a  course  which  leads  us  in  the 
direction  of  the  thoughts  that  we  conceive  to  be 
noble  and  true.  We  tnay  make  mistakes,  we 
may  wander  sadly  from  the  way,  but  I  believe 
that  it  is  our  duty,  our  best  hope,  to  try  and 


V 


358  Beside  Still  Waters 

perceive  what  it  is  that  God  is  trying  to  teach 
us.  Now,  our  choice  must  be  to  a  great  extent 
a  matter  of  temperament.  Some  men  like  work, 
aciimty,  injiuence,  relations  with  others.  Well, 
if  they  sincerely  believe  that  they  are  meant  to 
pursue  these  things,  it  is  their  duty  to  do  so. 
Others^  like  inyself,  seem  to  be  gifted  with  a 
sensitiveness  of  perception,  and  appreciation  of 
beauty  ifi  many  forms.  I  cannot  believe  that 
such  an  organisation  is  given  tne  fortuitously, 
and  that  I  am  merely  meant  to  suppress  it.  Of 
course  the  same  argument  could  be  used  sophis- 
tically  by  a  man  with  strong  sensual  passions 
and  appetites,  who  could  similarly  urge  that  he 
must  be  intended  to  gratify  them.  But  such 
gratification  leads  both  to  personal  disaster  and 
to  the  increase  of  unhappiness  in  the  race.  Such 
instincts  as  I  recognise  in  myself  seem  to  me  to 
do  neither.  I  believe  that  poets,  artists,  and 
musicians,  to  say  nothiiig  of  religious  teachers, 
have  effected  almost  more  for  the  zuelfare  of  the 
race  than  statesmen,  patriots,  and  philanthrop- 
ists. Of  course  the  necessary  work  of  the  world 
has  got  to  be  done ;  but  my  ozvn  belief  is  that  a 
good  deal  more  than  is  necessary  is  done,  because 
people  pursue  luxury  rather  than  simplicity.  I 
recognise  to  the  full  the  duty  of  work  ;  but,  to  be 
quite  honest,  I  think  that  a  serious  man  who  will 
preach  simplicity,  disseminate  ideas,  suggest  pos- 


Criticism  of  Life  359 

sibilities  of  intellectual  and  artistic  pleasure,  can 
do  a  very  real  work.  Such  a  man  must  be  dis- 
interested;  he  must  tiot  desire  fame  or  influence  ; 
he  must  be  content  if  he  can  sow  the  seeds  of 
beauty  in  a  few  minds. 

"  Now  the  Maudle  and  Postlethwaite  school 
are  not  concerned  with  anything  of  the  kind. 
They  merely  desire  to  make  a  sort  of  brightly 
polished  mirror  of  their  minds,  capable  of  re- 
flecting all  sorts  of  beautiful  ejfects,  and  this  is 
an  essentially  effeminate  thing  to  do,  because  it 
exalts  the  appreciation  of  sensation  above  all 
other  aims  ;  that  is  the  pursuit  of  artistic  lux- 
ury, and  it  is,  as  you  say,  quite  inconsistent  with 
good  citizenship.  I  have  no  admiration  for  the 
citizenship  the  end  of  which  is  to  make  a  com- 
fortable corner  for  one's  self  at  the  expense  of  oth- 
ers ;  I  do  not  at  all  believe  that  every  man  of 
ideals  is  bound  to  take  a  part  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  community.  We  can  easily  have  too 
many  administrators  ;  and  that  ends  in  the  dis- 
mal slough  of  municipal  politics.  After  all,  we 
must  nowadays  all  be  specialists,  and  a  man 
has  as  much  right  to  specialise  in  beauty  as  he 
has  to  specialise  in  Greek  Grammar.  In  fact  a 
specialist  in  Greek  Grammar  has  as  his  ulti- 
mate viezv  the  clearer  and  nicer  appreciation  of 
the  shades  of  Greek  expression,  and  is  merely 
serving  a  high  ideal  of  mental  refinement.     It 


360  Beside  Still  Waters 

seems  to  me  purely  conventional  to  accept  as  val- 
uable the  work  of  a  commentator  on  Sophocles^ 
because  it  is  traditionally  respectable,  and  to  say 
that  a  commentator  on  sunsets,  as  I  once  heard 
a  poet  described,  is  an  effeminate  dilettante.  It 
is  the  motive  that  matters.  Personally ,  I  think 
that  a  man  who  has  drifted  into  writing  a 
commentary  on  Sophocles  ^  because  he  happens  to 
find  that  he  can  earn  a  living  that  way,  is  no 
more  worthy  of  admiration  than  a  man  who 
earns  his  living  by  billiard-marking.  Neither 
are  necessary  to  the  world.  But  the  commentator 
and  the  billiard-marker  are  alike  admirable,  if 
they  are  working  out  a  theory,  if  they  think 
that  thus  and  thus  they  can  best  help  on  the  pro- 
gress of  the  world. 

"  My  own  desire  is,  so  to  speak,  to  be  a  commen- 
tator on  life,  in  one  particular  aspect.  I  think 
the  world  would  be  all  the  betterfiffhere  were  a 
finer  appreciation  of  what  is  noble  and  beautiful, 
a  deeper  discrimination  of  motives,  a  larger 
speculation  as  to  the  methods  and  objects 
of  our  pilgrimage.  I  think  the  coarseness  of  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  palate  that  prevails 
widely  nowadays  is  not  only  a  misfortune,  I 
think  it  is  of  the  nature  of  sin.  If  people  could 
live  more  in  the  generous  visions  of  poets,  if  they 
could  be  taught  to  see  beauty  in  trees  and  fields 
and  buildings,  I  think  they  would  be  happier  and 


A  Theory  of  Life  361 

better.  Most  people  are  obliged  to  spend  the  solid 
hours  of  the  day  i?i  necessary  work.  The  more 
sordid  that  work  is,  the  more  advisable  it  is  to 
cultivate  a  perception  of  the  quality  of  things. 
Every  one  has  hours  of  recreation  in  every 
day  ;  the  more  such  hours  are  filled  with  pleasant, 
simple,  hopeful,  beautiful  thoughts,  the  better 
for  us  all. 

"  Of  course  I  may  be  quite  wrong ;  I  may 
be  meant  to  find  out  my  mistake  ;  but  I  seem  to 
discern  in  the  teaching  of  Christ  a  desire  to 
make  men  see  the  true  values  of  life,  to  appreciate 
what  is  beautiful  and  tender  in  simple  lives 
and  homely  relationships.  The  teaching  of  Christ 
seems  to  fne  to  be  uniquely  and  essentially  poeti- 
cal, and  to  point  to  the  fact  that  the  uplifting  of 
the  human  heart  in  admiration,  hope,  and  love, 
is  the  cure  for  some,  at  least,  of  our  mayiifold 
ills.  That  is  my  own  theory  of  life,  and  I  do 
not  see  that  it  is  effeminate,  or  even  unpracti- 
cal;  and  it  is  a  mere  caricature  of  it  to  call 
it  Epicurean.  What  does  complicate  life  is  the 
feeble  acceptance  of  conventional  views,  the 
doing  of  things,  7iot  because  one  hopes  for 
happiness  out  of  them,  not  even  because  one 
likes  them,  but  because  one  sees  other  people  doing 
them.  Even  in  the  most  sheltered  existence,  like 
my  own,  there  are  plenty  of  things  which  provide 
a  bracing  tonic  against  self-satisfaction.      There 


362  Beside  Still  Waters 

are  the  criticism  and  disapproval  of  others,  con- 
tempt, hostility  ;  there  are  illness,  and  sorrow, 
and  the  fear  of  death.  No  one  of  a  sensitive 
nature  can  hope  to  live  an  untroubled  life  ;  but 
to  court  unhappiness  for  the  sake  of  its  ionic 
qualities  seems  to  me  no  more  reasonable  than  to 
refuse  an  ancesthetic  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
interfering  with  natural  processes. 

"  /  don't  know  that  I  expect  to  convert  you  ; 
but  at  least  I  am  glad  to  make  my  position 
clear.  I  don't  assume  that  I  am  in  the  right. 
I  only  know  that  I  am  trying  to  do  what  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  right,  trying  to  simplify 
the  issues  of  life,  to  unravel  the  tangle  in 
which  so  many  people  seem  to  me  to  acquiesce 
helplessly  and  timidly'* 


^ 


./' 


XXXVI 

There  were  days,  of  course,  when  Hugh's 
reflectjong_took_anjrTepigssibly  optimistic  turn. 
Such  was  a  bright^  day  iiTtlie  late  summer,  when 
the  sun  shone  with  a  temperate  clearness,  and 
big  white  clouds,  like  fragments  torn  from  some 
aerial  pack  of  cotton-wool,  moved  blithely  in 
the  sky.  Hugh  rode — he  was  staying  at  his 
mother's  house — to  a  little  village  perched  a- 
stride  on  a  great  ridge.  He  diverged  from  the 
road  to  visit  the  ancient  church,  built  of  mas- 
sive stone  and  roofed  with  big  stone-tiles ;  up 
there,  swept  by  strong  winds,  splashed  by  fierce 
rains,  it  has  grown  to  look  like  a  crag  rather 
than  a  building.  By  the  side  of  it  ran  a  little, 
steep,  narrow  lane,  which  he  had  never  ex- 
plored ;  he  rode  cautiously  down  the  stony  track, 
among  thick  hazel  copses  ;  occasionally,  through 
a  gap,  he  had  a  view  of  a  great  valley,  all  wild 
with  wood  ;  once  or  twice  he  passed  a  timbered 
farmhouse,  with  tall  brick  chimneys.  The  coun. 
try  round  about  was  much  invaded  by  new 
pert  houses,  but  there  were  none  here ;  and 
363 


364  Beside  Still  Waters 

Hugh  supposed  that  this  road,  which  seemed 
the  only  track  into  the  valley,  was  of  so  forbid- 
ding a  steepness  that  it  had  not  occurred  to  any 
one  to  settle  there.  The  road  became  more 
and  more  precipitous,  and  at  the  very  bottom, 
having  descended  nearly  three  hundred  feet, 
Hugh  found  himself  in  a  very  beautiful  place. 
He  thought  he  had  never  seen  anything  more 
sweetly,  more  characteristically  English.  On 
one  side  was  a  rough  field,  encircled  by  forest 
on  all  sides;  here  stood  some  old  wooden  sheds 
and  byres  ;  and  one  or  two  green  rides  passed 
glimmering  into  the  thick  copse,  with  a  charm- 
ing air  of  mystery,  as  though  they  led  to 
some  sequestered  woodland  paradise.  To  the 
right  was  a  mill,  with  a  great  pond  thick  with 
bulrushes  and  water-lilies,  full  of  water-birds, 
coots,  and  moor-hens,  which  swam  about,  utter- 
ing plaintive  cries.  The  mill  was  of  wood,  the 
planks  warped  and  weather-stained,  the  tiled 
roof  covered  with  mosses ;  the  mill-house  itself 
was  a  quaint  brick  building,  with  a  pretty 
garden,  full  of  old-fashioned  flowers,  sloping 
down  to  the  pool ;  a  big  flight  of  pigeons  cir- 
cled round  and  round  in  the  breeze,  turning 
with  a  sudden  clatter  of  wings ;  behind  the 
house  were  small  sand-stone  bluffs,  fringed  with 
feathery  ashes,  and  the  wood  ran  up  steeply 
above  into  the  sky.     It  looked  like  an  old  steel- 


The  Mill  365 

engraving,  like  a  picture  by  Morland  or  Con- 
stable. The  blue  smoke  went  up  from  the 
chimneys  in  that  sheltered  nook,  rising  straight 
into  the  air,  lending  a  rich  colour  to  the  trees 
behind.  Hugh  thought  it  would  be  a  beautiful 
place  to  live  in,  so  remote  from  the  world,  in 
that  still  valley,  where  the  only  sound  was  the 
wind  of  the  copses,  the  trickle  of  the  mill-leat, 
and  the  slow  thunder  of  the  dripping  wheel 
within.  Yet  he  supposed  that  the  simple  peo- 
ple who  lived  there  were  probably  unconscious 
of  its  beauty,  and  only  aware  that  the  roads 
which  led  to  the  spot  were  inconveniently  steep. 
Still,  it  was  hard  to  think  that  the  charm  of  the 
place  would  not  pass  insensibly  into  the  hearts, 
perhaps  even  into  the  faces,  of  the  dwellers 
there. 

He  stood  for  a  little  to  see  the  bright  water 
leaping  clear  and  fresh  from  the  sluice.  There 
was  a  delicious  scent  of  cool  river-plants  every- 
where. It  was  hard  not  to  think  that  the  stream, 
bickering  out  in  the  sun  from  the  still  pool,  had 
a  sense  of  joy  and  delight.  It  was  passing, 
passing;  Hugh  could  trace  in  thought  every 
mile  of  the  way  ;  down  the  wooded  valley  it 
was  bound,  running  over  the  brown  gravel,  by 
shady  wood-ends  and  pasture  sides ;  then  it 
would  pass  out  into  the  plain,  and  run,  a  full 
and    brimming   stream,  between  sandy  banks. 


366  Beside  Still  Waters 

half  hidden  by  the  thick,  glossy-leaved  alders. 
Hugh  knew  the  broad  water-meadows  down 
below,  with  the  low  hills  on  either  side,  where 
big  water-plants  grew  in  marshy  places,  and 
where  the  cattle  moved  slowly  about  through 
the  still  hours.  Soon  the  stream  would  be  run- 
ning by  the  great  downs — it  was  a  river  now, 
bearing  boats  upon  it — till  it  passed  by  the 
wharves  and  beneath  the  bridges  of  the  little 
town,  and  out  into  the  great  sea-flat,  meeting, 
with  how  strange  a  wonder,  the  upward-creeping 
briny  tide,  with  its  sharp  savours  and  its  whole, 
some  smell ;  till  it  flowed  at  last  by  the  docks, 
where  the  big  steamers  lay  unlading,  blowing 
their  loud  sea-horns,  past  weed-fringed  piers 
and  shingly  beaches,  until  it  was  mingled  with 
the  moving  deep,  where  the  waves  ran  higher 
on  the  blue  sea-line,  and  the  great  buoy  rolled 
and  dipped  above  the  shoal. 

And  then,  perhaps,  it  would  be  drawn  up 
again  in  twisted  wreaths  of  mist,  rising  in  vapour 
beneath  the  breathless  sun,  to  flock  back,  per- 
haps, in  clouds  over  the  earth,  and  begin  its 
little  pilgrimage  again. 

Was  the  same  true,  he  wondered,  of  himself, 
of  everything  about  him  ?  Was  it  all  a  never- 
ending,  and  unwearying  pilgrimage  ?  Was 
death  itself  but  the  merging  of  the  atom  in  the 
element,  and    then,    perhaps,   the   race   began 


The  Stream's  Pilgrimage      367 

again  ?  On  such  a  day  as  this,  of  bright  sun 
and  eager  air.  it  seemed  sweet  to  think  that  it 
was  even  so.  This  soul-stuff,  that  one  called 
one's  self,  wafted  out  of  the  unknown,  strangely 
entangled  with  the  bodily  elements,  would  it 
perhaps  mingle  again  with  earthly  conditions, 
borne  round  and  round  in  an  endless  progres- 
sion ?  Yet,  if  this  was  so,  why  did  one  seem, 
not  part  of  the  world,  but  a  thing  so  wholly 
distinct  and  individual?  To-day,  indeed,  Hugh 
seemed  to  be  akin  to  the  earth,  and  felt  as 
though  all  that  breathed  or  moved  and  lived 
had  a  brotherly,  a  sisterly  greeting  for  him.  As 
he  moved  slowly  on  up  the  steep  road,  a  child 
playing  by  the  wayside,  encouraged  perhaps  by 
a  loving  brightness  that  rose  from  Hugh's 
heart  into  his  face,  nodded  and  smiled  to  him 
shyly.  Hugh  smiled  back,  and  waved  his 
hand.  That  childish  smile  came  to  him  as  a 
confirmation  of  his  blithe  mood  ;  there  were 
others,  then,  bound  on  the  same  pilgrimage  as 
himself,  who  wished  him  well,  and  shared  his 
happiness.  To  pass  thus  smiling  through  the 
world,  heedless  as  far  as  might  be  of  weariness 
and  sorrow,  taking  the  simple  joys  that  flowed  so 
freely, if  only  one  divested  one's  self  of  the  hard 
and  dull  ambitions  that  made  life  into  a  struggle 
and  a  contest — that  was,  perhaps,  the  secret  t 
There  would  be  days,  no  doubt,  of  gloom  and 


368  Beside  Still  Waters 

heaviness  ;  days  when  life  would  run,  like  the 
stream  which  he  could  hear  murmuring  below 
him,  through  dark  coverts,  dripping  with  rain  ; 
days  of  frost,  when  nature  was  leafless  and  be- 
numbed, and  when  the  rut  was  barred  with  icy 
spikes.  But  one  could  live  in  hope  and  faith, 
waiting  for  the  summer  days,  when  life  ran 
swift  and  bright,  under  a  pale  sunset  sky  till 
the  streaks  of  crimso'n  light  died  into  a  trans- 
parent green ;  and  the  stream  ran  joyfully, 
under  the  stars,  wondering  what  sweet  un- 
familiar place  might  stand  revealed,  when  the 
day  climbed  slowly  in  the  east,  and  the  dew 
globed  itself  upon  the  fresh  grass,  in  the  invig- 
orating sweetness,  the  cool  fragrance  of  the  J^ 
dawn.  /       0-' 

4-^ 


XXXVII 

One  hot  cloudless  day  of  summer,  Hugh 
took  a  train,  and,  descending  at  a  quiet  wayside 
station,  walked  to  a  little  place  deep  in  the 
country,  to  see  the  remains  of  an  a.ncient  house 
which  he  was  told  had  a  great  beauty.  He 
found  the  place  with  some  difficulty.  The 
church,  to  which  he  first  directed  his  steps,  was 
very  ancient  and  almost  ruinous.  It  was  evi- 
dently far  too  big  for  the  needs  of  the  little 
hamlet,  and  it  was  so  poorly  endowed  that  it  was 
diflficult  to  find  any  one  who  would  take  the  liv- 
ing. A  great  avenue  of  chestnuts,  with  a  grass- 
grown  walk  beneath,  led  up  to  the  porch.  He 
entered  by  a  curious  iron-bound  door,  under 
a  Norman  arch  of  very  quaint  workmanship. 
The  chjicch.  wa3_of  different  dates,  and  the  very 
neglect  which  it  suffered  gave  it  an  extreme 
picturesqueness.  One  of  its  fine  features  was  a 
brick  chapel,  built  at  the  east  end  of  one  of  the 
aisles,  where  an  old  baron  lay  in  state,  in  black 
armour,  his  eyes  closed  quietly,  his  pointed 
beard  on  his  breast,  his  hands  folded,  as  though 
u  369 


370  Beside  Still  Waters 

he  lay  praying  to  himself.  The  heavy  marble 
pillars  of  the  shrine  were  carved  with  a  stiff 
ornament  of  vine-leaves  and  grape-clusters,  and 
the  canopy  rose  pompously  to  the  roof,  with 
its  cognisances  and  devices.  There  were  many 
monuments  in  the  church,  on  which  Hugh 
read  the  history  of  the  ancient  faoiily,  now  en- 
gulfed in  a  family  more  wealthy  and  ancient 
still;  the  latest  of  the  memorials  was  that  of  a 
lady,  whose  head,  sculptured  by  Chantrey,  with 
its  odd  puffs  of  hair,  had  a  discreet  and  smiling 
mien,  as  of  one  who  had  known  enough  sorrow 
to  purge  prosperity  of  its  grossness.  From  the 
churchyard  there  led  a  little  path,  which  skirted 
a  wide  moat  of  dark  water,  full  of  innumerable 
fish,  basking  in  the  warmth  ;  in  the  centre  of  the 
moat  stood  a  dark  grove  of  trees,  with  a  thick 
undergrowth.  Suddenly,  through  an  opening, 
Hugh  saw  the  turrets  of  an  anQJent^atehouse, 
built  of  mellow  brick,  rising  into  the  sunlight, 
with  an  astonishing  sweetness  and  nobleness  of 
air ;  below  was  a  lawn,  bordered  by  yew-hedges, 
where  a  party  of  people,  ladies  in  bright  dresses 
and  leisurely  men,  were  sitting  talking  with  a 
look  of  smiling  content.  It  was  more  like  a 
scene  in  a  romance  than  a  thing  in  real  life. 
Hugh  stood  unobserved  beneath  a  tree,  and 
looked  long  at  the  delightful  picture  ;  and  then 
presently  wandered  further  by  a   grassy  lane, 


A  Garden  Scene  37 1 

with  high  hedges  full  of  wild  roses  and  elder- 
blooms,  where  the  air  had  a  hot,  honied  per- 
fume. He  came  in  a  moment  to  a  great  clear 
stream  running  silently  between  banks  full 
of  meadow-sweet  and  loosestrife.  The  turrets 
of  the  gate-house  looked  pleasantly  over  the 
trees  of  the  little  park  that  lay  on  the  other  side 
of  the  stream.  The  air  was  still  but  fresh.  The 
trees  stood  silent,  with  the  metallic  look  of  high 
summer  upon  their  stiff  leaves,  as  though  seen 
in  a  picture.  The  whole  landscape  seemed  to 
have  a  consecration  of  quiet  joy  and  peace  over 
it.  It  seemed  a  place  made  for  the  walks  of 
rustic  lovers,  on  summer  evenings,  under  a  low- 
hung  moon.  The  whole  scene,  the  homely 
bridge,  the  murmur  of  the  water  in  the  pool, 
the  blossoming  hedges,  had  a  sense  of  delicate 
romance  about  it.  It  seemed  to  stand  for  so 
much  happiness,  and  to  draw  Hugh  into  the 
charmed  circle. 

The  difficulty  was  somehow  to  believe  that 
the  place  was  in  reality  a  centre  of  real  and 
ordinary  life ;  it  seemed  almost  impossibly 
beautiful  and  delicious  to  Hugh,  like  a  play  en- 
acted for  his  sole  benefit,  a  sweet  tale  told. 
Those  gracious  persons  in  the  garden  seemed 
like  people  in  a  scene  out  of  Boccaccio,  whose 
past  and  whose  future  are  alike  veiled  and  un- 
known and  who  just  emerge,  in  the  light  of  art. 


372  Beside  Still  Waters 

as  a  sweet  company  seen  for  an  instant,  and  yet 
somehow  eternally  there.  But  the  thought 
that  they  were  persons  like  himself,  with  cares, 
schemes,  anxieties,  appeared  inconceivable; 
that  was  one  of  the  curious  illusions  of  life,  that 
the  world  through  which  one  moved  seemed  to 
group  itself  for  one's  delight  into  a  pleasant 
vision,  which  had  no  concern  for  one's  self  ex- 
cept to  brighten  and  enhance  the  warm  sunlit 
day  with  an  indescribable  grace  and  beauty. 
How  hard  to  think  that  it  was  all  changing  and 
shifting,  even  while  one  gazed  !  that  the  clear 
water,  lapsing  through  the  sluice,  was  passing 
onwards,  and  could  never  again  be  at  that  one 
sweet  point  of  its  seaward  course ;  that  the 
roses  were  fading  and  dying  beside  him  ;  that 
the  pleasant  group  on  the  lawn  must  soon  break 
up,  never  perhaps  to  reassemble.  If  one  could 
but  arrest  the  quiet  flow  of  things  for  a  moment, 
suspend  it  for  a  period,  however  brief !  That 
was  after  all  the  joy  of  art,  that  it  caught  such 
a  moment  as  that,  while  the  smiling  faces 
turned  to  each  other,  while  the  sun  lay  warm 
on  the  brickwork,  and  made  it  immortal ! 

There  came  into  Hugh's  mind  the  thought 
that  this  deep  thirst  for  peace  might  somehow 
yet  be  satisfied.  How  could  he  otherwise  con- 
ceive of  it,  how  could  he  dream  so  clearly  of  it, 
if  it  were  not  actually  there  ?     He  thought  that 


A  Vision  373 

there  must  be  a  region  where  the  pulse  of  time 
should  cease  to  beat,  where  there  should  be  no 
restless  looking  backwards  and  forwards,  but 
where  the  spirit  should  brood  in  an  unend- 
ing joy;  but  now,  the  world  thrust  one  for- 
ward, impatient,  unsatisfied  ;  even  as  he  gazed, 
the  shadows  had  shifted  and  lengthened,  and 
the  thought  of  the  world,  that  called  him 
back  to  care  and  anxiety,  began  to  over- 
shadow him.  Was  it  a  phantom  that  mocked 
him  ?  or  was  it  not  rather  a  type,  an  allegory  of 
something  unchanged  and  unchangeable,  that 
waited  for  him  beyond  ?  And  then  in  that 
still  afternoon,  there  came  to  him  a  sense 
that  occasionally  visited  him,  and  that  seemed, 
when  it  came,  the  truest  and  best  thing  \y^ 
in  the  world,  the  vision  of  an  unseen  Friend, 
to  Whom  he  was  infinitely  dear,  closer  to 
Him  even  than  to  himself.  Who  surrounded 
and  enveloped  him  with  care  and  concern 
and  love ;  Who  brought  him  tenderly  into 
the  fair  green  places  of  the  earth,  such  as  he 
had  visited  to-day,  whispered  to  him  the  secret 
of  it  all,  and  only  did  not  reveal  it  in  its 
fulness  because  the  time  for  him  to  know 
it  was  not  yet,  and  because  the  very  delay 
arose  from  some  depth  of  unimaginable,  love. 
In  such  a  mood  as  this,  Hugh  felt  that  he  could 
wait  in  utter  confidence ;  that  he  could  drink 


374  Beside  Still  Waters 

in  with  glad  eyes  and  ears  the  beautiful  and 
delicate  things  that  were  shown  to  him,  the 
rich,  luxuriant  foliage,  the  dim  sun-warmed 
stream,  the  silent  trees,  the  old  towers.  There 
seemed  to  him  nothing  that  he  could  not 
bear,  nothing  that  he  could  not  gladly  do, 
when  so  tender  a  hand  was  leading  him.  He 
knew  indeed  that  he  would  again  be  impa- 
tient, restless,  wilful ;  but  for  the  moment  it 
was  as  though  he  had  tasted  of  some  mys- 
terious sacrament ;  that  the  wine  of  some  holy 
cup  had  been  put  to  his  lips ;  that  he  knew 
that  he  was  not  alone,  but  in  the  very  heart 
of  a  wise  and  patient  God.  J 


yC 


XXXVIII 

It  was  in  the  later  weeks  of  a  hot,  still  mid- 
summer that  Hugh  escaped  from  Cambridge  to 
the  Lakes.  He  did  not  realise,  until  he  found 
himself  driving  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  be- 
side Windermere,  how  parched  and  dry  his  very 
mind  had  become  in  the  long  heats  of  the  sun- 
dried  flats.  Sometimes  the  road  wound  down 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  water,  lapping  deliciously 
among  the  stones;  sometimes  it  skirted  the 
pleasances  of  a  cool  sheltered  villa  which  lay 
embowered  in  trees,  blinking  contentedly  across 
the  lake.  The  sight  of  the  great  green  hills 
with  their  skirts  clothed  with  wood,  with  trees 
straggling  upwards  along  the  water-courses,  the 
miniature  crags  escaping  from  oak-coppices,  the 
black  heads  of  bleak  mountains,  filled  him  with 
an  exquisite  and  speechless  delight. 

It  was  sunset  before  he  reached  his  destina- 
tion, which  was  a  large  house  of  rough  stone, 
much  festooned  with  creepers,  which  crowned  a 
little  height  at  the  base  of  the  fells,  in  the  cen- 
tre of  a  wild  wood.  The  house  was  that  of  a 
very   old  man,  hard  on  his  ninetieth   year,   a 


Z7^  Beside  Still  Waters 

relative  of  Hugh's,  and  an  old  friend  of  his 
family.  There  was  a  short  cut  to  the  house 
among  the  woods,  and  Hugh  left  the  carriage  to 
go  round  by  the  drive,  while  he  himself  walked 
up.  The  path  was  a  little  track  among  copses, 
roofed  over  by  interlacing  boughs,  and  giving  an 
abundance  of  pretty  glimpses  to  right  and  left 
of  the  unvisited  places  of  the  wood  ;  old  brown 
boulders  covered  with  moss,  with  ash-suckers 
shooting  out  among  the  stones,  little  streams 
rippling  downwards,  small  green  lawns  fringed 
with  low  trees.  The  western  valley  was  full  of 
a  rich  golden  light,  and  the  wooded  ridges  rose 
quietly  one  after  another,  with  the  dark  solemn 
form  of  mountains  on  the  horizon.  A  few  dap- 
pled clouds,  fringed  with  fire,  floated  high  in 
the  green  sky.  It  all  seemed  to  him  to  be 
screening  some  sacred  and  mysterious  pageant, 
which  was,  as  it  were,  being  celebrated  out  in 
the  west,  where  the  orange  sunset  lay  dying. 
He  thought  of  the  lonely  valleys  among  the 
hills,  slowing  filling  with  twilight  gloom,  the  high 
ridges  from  which  one  could  discern  the  sun 
sinking  in  glory  over  the  far-spread  flashing  sea 
with  its  misty  rim.  The  house  loomed  up 
suddenly  over  the  thickets,  with  a  light  or  two 
burning  in  the  windows  which  pierced  the  thick 
wall. 

Within,  all  was  as  it  had  been  for  many  a  year ; 


Tranquil  Life  377 

it  was  a  house  in  which  everything  seemed 
to  stand  still,  the  day  passing  smoothly  in  a 
simple  and  pleasant  routine.  He  received  a 
very  kindly  and  gentle  welcome  from  his  host, 
and  was  pleased  to  find  that  the  party  was  of 
the  quietest — an  old  friend  or  two,  a  widowed 
daughter  of  the  house,  one  or  two  youthful 
cousins.  Hugh  slipped  into  his  place  in  the 
household  as  if  he  had  never  been  absent ;  he 
established  his  books  in  a  corner  of  the  dark 
library  ful  of  old  volumes.  It  was  always  a 
pleasure  to  him  to  see  his  host,  a  courtly,  silent 
old  man,  with  snow-white  hair  and  beard,  who 
sat  smiling,  eating  so  little  that  Hughwonder- 
ed  how  h^sustalned^ life,  reading^for  an  hour 
or  two,  walking  a  little  about  the  garden,  slitting 
long  in  contented_medJ_yLtipn,  never  seeming  to 
be  weary  or  melancholy.  Hugh  remembered 
that,  some  years  before,  he  had  wondered  that 
any  one  could  live  so,  neither  looking  back- 
wards nor  forwards,  with  no  designs  or  cares  or 
purposes,  simply  taking,  each  day:  as  it  jcame 
wijth  a  perfect  tramjuillity,  not  overshadowed 
by  the  thought  of  how  few  years  of  life  were 
left  him.  But  now  he  seemed  to  understand  it 
better;  it  was  just  the  soft  close  of  a  kindly  . 
and  innocent  life,  dying  like  a  tree  or  a  flower. 
The  old  man  liked  to  have  Hugh  as  the  com- 
panion of   his  morning   ramble,   showed    him 


378  Beside  Still  Waters 

many  curious  plants  and  flowers,  and  spoke 
often  of  the  reminiscences  of  his  departed  youth 
with  no  shadow  of  desire  or  regret.  At  first 
the  grateful  coolness  of  the  place  revived  Hugh ; 
but  the  soft,  moist  climate  brought  with  it  a 
fatigue  of  its  own,  an  indolent  dejection,  which 
made  him  averse  to  work  and  even  to  bodily 
activity.  He  took,  however,  one  or  two  lonely 
walks  among  the  mountains.  In  his  listless 
mood,  he  was  vexed  and  disquieted  by  the 
contrast  between  the  utter  peace  and  beauty  of 
the  hills,  which  seemed  to  uplift  themselves, 
half  in  majesty  and  half  in  appeal,  into  the  still 
sky,  as  though  they  had  struggled  out  of  the 
world,  and  yet  desired  a  further  blessing, — ^the 
contrast  between  their  meek  and  rugged  pa- 
tience and  the  noisy,  dusty  crowd  of  shameless 
and  indifferent  tourists,  that  circulated  among 
the  green  valleys,  like  a  poisonous  fluid  in  the 
veins  of  the  wholesome  mountains.  They 
brought  a  kind  of  a  blight  upon  the  place  ;  and 
yet  they  were  harmless,  inquisitive  people, 
tempted  thither,  most  of  them  by  fashion,  a 
few  perhaps  by  a  feeble  love  of  beauty,  and 
only  desirous  to  bring  their  own  standard  of 
comforts  with  them.  The  world  seemed  out 
of  joint ;  the  radical  ugliness  and  baseness  of 
man  an  insult  to  the  purity  and  sweetness  of 
nature. 


On  the  Fell  379 

Hugh  walked  back,  in  a  close  and  heavy  after- 
noon, across  the  fell,  with  these  thoughts  strug- 
gling together  in  his  heart.  The  valley  was 
breathlessly  still,  and  the  flies  buzzed  round  him 
as  he  disturbed  them  from  the  bracken.  The 
whole  world  looked  so  sweet  and  noble,  that  it 
was  impossible  not  to  think  that  it  was  moulded 
and  designed  by  a  Will  of  unutterable  gracious- 
ness  and  beauty.  From  the  top,  beside  a  little 
crag  full  of  clinging  trees,  that  held  on  tena- 
ciously to  the  crevices  and  ledges,  with  so  per- 
fect an  accommodation  to  their  precarious  sit- 
uation, Hugh  surveyed  the  wide  valleys,  and 
saw  the  smoke  ascend  from  hamlets  and  houses, 
the  lake  as  still  as  a  mirror,  while  the  shadows 
lengthened  on  the  hills,  which  seemed  indeed  to 
change  their  very  shapes  by  delicate  gradations. 
It  looked  perfectly  peaceful  and  serene.  Yet 
in  how  many  houses  were  there  unquiet  and  suf- 
fering hearts,  waiting  in  vain  for  respite  or  re- 
lease !  The  ^ain  of  the  world  press^_heavily 
upon  Hugh ;  it  seemed  that  if  he  could  have 
breathed  out  his  life  there  upon  the  hill-top 
among  the  fern,  to  mingle  with  the  incense  of 
the  evening,  that  would  be  best ;  and  yet  even 
while  he  thought  it,  there  seemed  to  contend 
with  his  sadness  an  immense  desire  for  joy,  for 
life ;  how  many  beautiful  things  there  were  to 
see,  to  hear,  to  feel,  to  say  ;  to  be  loved,  to  be 


3^0  Beside  Still  Waters 

needed — how  Hugh  craved  for  that !  While 
^  he  sat,  there  alighted  on  his  knee,  with  much 
deliberation,  a  dry,  varnished-looking,  orange- 
banded  fly,  which  might  have  almost  been 
turned  out  of  a  manufactory  a  moment  before. 
It  sent  out  a  thin  and  musical  buzzing,  as  it 
cleaned  its  brown  large-eyed  head  industriously 
with  its  long  legs.  It  seemed  to  wish  to  sit 
with  Hugh ;  and  again  and  again,  after  a  short 
flight,  it  returned  to  the  same  place.  What  was 
the  meaning  of  this  tiny,  definite  life,  with  its 
short  space  of  sun  and  shade,  made  with  so 
curious  and  elaborate  an  art,  so  whimsically 
adorned  and  glorified  ?  Here  again  he  was 
touched  close  by  the  impenetrable  mystery  of 
things.  But  presently  the  cheerful  and  com- 
placent creature  flew  off  on  some  secret  errand, 
and  Hugh  was  left  alone  again. 

He  descended  swiftly  into  the  valley ;  the 
road  was  full  of  dust.  The  vehicles,  full  of 
chattering,  smoking,  vacuous  persons  were 
speeding  home.  The  hands  of  many  were  full 
of  poor  fading  flowers,  torn  from  lawn  and  ledge 
to  please  a  momentary  whim.  Yet  beside  the 
road  slid  the  clear  stream  over  its  shingle,  pass- 
ing from  brisk  cascades  into  dark  and  silent 
pools,  fringed  with  rich  water-plants,  the  trees 
bowing  over  the  water.  How  swiftly  one 
passed  from  disgust  and  ugliness  into  unimag- 


Peace  381 

ined  peace !  It  was  all  going  forwards,  all 
changing,  all  tending  to  some  unknown  goal. 

Hugh  found  his  host  sitting  on  the  terrace, 
under  a  leafy  sycamore,  a  perfect  picture  of  holy^ 
age  and  serenity.  He  listened  to  the  recital  of 
HuglTs  litTt'le  adventures  with  a  smile,  and  said 
that  he  had  often  walked  over  the  fell  in  the  old 
days,  but  did  not  suppose  he  would  ever  see  it 
again.  "  I  am  just  waiting  for  my  release,"  he 
said,  with  a  little  nod  of  his  head  ;  "  every  time 
that  I  sit  here,  I  think  it  may  very  likely  be 
the_last."  Hugh  longed  to  ask  him  the  secret 
of  this  contented  and  passionless  peace,  but  he 
knew  there  could  be  no  answer;  it  was  the 
kindly  gift  of  God. 

The  sunset  died  away  among  the  blue  hill- 
ranges,  and  a  soft  breeze  began  to  stir  among 
the  leaves  of  the  sycamore  overhead.  A  night- 
jar sent  out  its  liquid,  reiterated  note  from  the 
heather,  and  a  star  climbed  above  the  edge  of 
the  dark  hill.  Here  was  peace  enough,  if  he 
could  but  reach  it  and  seize  it.  Yet  it  softly 
eluded  his  grasp,  and  seemed  only  to  mock  him 
as  unattainable.  Should  he  ever  seize  it  ? 
There  was  no  answer  possible ;  yet  a  message 
seemed  to  come  wistfully  and  timidly,  flying 
like  a  night-bird  out  of  the  wild  woodland,  as 
though  it  would  have  settled  near  him  ,  but  it 
left  him  with  the  same  inextinguishable  hunger 


382  Beside  Still  Waters 

of  the  heart,  that  seemed  to  be  increased  rather 
than  fed  by  the  fragrant  incense  of  the  garden, 
the  sight  of  the  cool,  glimmering  paths,  the  pale 
rock  rising  from  the  turf,  the  silent  pool. 


XXXIX 

Hugh  was  staying  in  the  country  with  his 
mother.  It  was  a  bright  morning  in  the  late 
summer,  and  he  had  just  walked  out  on  to 
the  little  gravel-sweep  before  the  house,  which 
commande3~a  view  of  a  pleasant  wooded  valley 
with  a  stream  running  through  ;  it  was  one  of 
those  fresh  days,  with  a  light  breeze  rustling 
the  trees,  when  it  seemed  good  to  be  alive ; 
rain  had  fallen  in  the  night,  and  had  washed 
the  dust  of  a  long  drought  off  the  trees  ;  some 
soft  aerial  pigment  seemed  mingled  with  the  air, 
lending  a  rich  lustre  to  everything ;  the  small 
woods  on  the  hillside  opposite  had  a  mellow 
colour,  and  the  pastures  between  were  of  radi- 
ant and  transparent  freshness  ;  the  little  gusts 
whirled  over  the  woodland,  turning  the  under 
sides  of  the  leaves  up,  and  brightening  the 
whole  with  a  dash  of  lighter  green. 

Just  at  this  moment  a  telegram  was  put  into 

Hugh's  hand,  announcing  the  sudden  death  of 

an  elderly  lady,  who  had  been  a  good  friend  to 

him  for  over  twenty  years.      Death  seemed  to 

383 


384  Beside  Still  Waters 

be  everywhere  about  him,  and  the  bright  scene 
suddenly  assumed  an  almost  heartless  aspect  of 
mirth ;  but  he  put  the  thought  from  him,  and 
strove  rather  to  feel  that  life  and  death  rejoice 
together. 

Later  in  the  day  he  heard  more  particu- 
lars. His  friend  was  a  wealthy  woman  who 
had  lived  a  very  quiet  life  for  many  years 
in  a  pleasant  country-house.  She  had  often 
spoken  to  Hugh  of  her  fear  of  a  long  and 
tedious  illness,  wearing  alike  to  both  the  suf- 
ferer and  those  in  attendance,  when  the  mind 
may  become  fretful,  fearful,  and  impatient  in 
the  last  scene,  just  when  one  most  desires 
that  the  latest  memories  of  one's  life  may  be 
cheerful,  brave,  and  serene.  Her  prayer  had 
been  very  tenderly  answered ;  she  had  been 
ailing  of  late  ;  but  she  had  been  sitting  talking 
in  her  drawing-room  the  day  before,  to  a  quiet 
family  group,  when  she  had  been  seized  with  a 
sudden  faintness,  and  had  died  gently,  in  a  few 
minutes,  smiling  palely,  and  probably  not  even 
knowing  that  she  was  in  any  sort  of  danger. 

Hugh  spent  the  day  mostly  in  solitude,  and 
retraced  in  tender  thought  the  stages  of  their 
long  friendship.  His  friend  had  been  a  woman 
of  strong  and  marked  individuality,  who  had 
loved  life,  and  had  made  many  loyal  friends. 
She  was  intensely,  almost  morbidly,  aware  of 


A  Friend  385 

the  suffering  of  the  world,  especially  of  animals  ; 
and  Hugh  remembered  how  she  had  once  told 
him  that  a  shooting-party  in  the  neighbouring 
squire's  woods  had  generally  meant  for  her  a 
sleepless  night,  at  the  thought  of  wounded 
birds  and  beasts  suffering  and  bleeding  the 
long  hours  through,  couched  in  the  fern,  faint 
with  pain,  and  wondering  patiently  what  hard 
thing  had  befallen  them.  She  had  been  a  wo- 
man of  strong  preferences  and  prejudices, 
marked  likes  and  dislikes  ;  intensely  critical  of 
others,  even  of  those  she  loved  best.  Her 
talk  was  lively,  epigrammatic,  and  pungent ; 
she  was  the  daughter  of  a  famous  Whig  house,  I 
and  had  the  strong  aristocratical  prejudices, 
coupled  with  a  theoretical  belief  in  popular 
equality,  so  often  found  in  old  Whig  families. 
But  this  superiority  betrayed  itself  not  in  any 
obvious  arrogance  or  disdain,  but  in  a  high  and 
distinguished  personal  courtesy,  that  penetrated 
as  if  by  a  subtle  aroma  all  that  she  said  or 
did.  Though  careless  of  personal  appearance, 
with  no  grace  of  beauty,  and  wearing  habitu- 
ally the  oldest  clothes,  she  was  yet  indisputably 
the  first  person  in  any  society  in  which  she 
found  herself.  She  was  intensely  reserved 
about  herself,  her  family,  her  possessions,  and 
her  past  ;  but  Hugh  had  an  inkling  that  there 
had  been   some   deep   disappointment  in   the 

25 


386  Beside  Still  Waters 

background,  which  had  turned  a  passionately 
affectionate  nature  into  a  fastidious  and  critical 
temperament.  She  had  a  wonderful  contralto 
voice,  and  a  real  genius  for  music ;  she  could 
rarely  be  persuaded  to  touch  an  instrument ; 
but  occasionally,  with  a  small  and  familiar  party, 
she  would  sing  a  few  old  songs  with  a  pas- 
sion and  a  depth  of  melancholy  feeling  that 
produced  an  almost  physical  thrill  in  her 
audiences.  She  was  of  an  indolent  tempera- 
ment, read  little,  never  worked,  had  few  phil- 
anthropic or  social  instincts ;  she  was  always 
ready  to  talk,  but  was  equally  content  to 
spend  long  afternoons  sitting  alone  before  a 
fire,  just  shielding  her  eyes  from  the  blaze, 
meditating  with  an  intentness  that  seemed 
as  though  she  were  revolving  over  and  over 
again  some  particular  memory,  some  old  and 
sad  problem  for  which  she  could  find  no 
solution.  Hugh  used  to  think  that  she  blamed 
herself  for  something  irreparable. 

But  her  gift  of  humour,  of  incisive  penetra- 
tion, of  serious  enthusiasm,  made  it  always  re- 
freshing to  be  with  her;  and  Hugh  found  himself 
reflecting  that  though  it  had  been  in  many  ways 
so  inarticulate  and  inactive  a  life,  it  yet  seemed, 
by  virtue  of  a  certain  vivid  quality,  a  certain 
subdued  fire,  a  life  of  imperishable  worth.  She 
had    been  both  generous   and   severe    in    her 


The  Gate  of  Life  387 

judgments  ;  but  there  had  never  been  anything 
tame  or  mild  or  weak  about  her.  She  had  al- 
ways known  her  own  mind  ;  she  yielded  freely 
to  impulse  without  ever  expressing  regret  or  re- 
pentance. Small  as  her  circle  had  been,  Hugh 
yet  felt  that  she  had  somehow  affected  the 
world  ;  and  yet  he  could  indicate  nothing  that 
she  had  accomplished,  except  for  the  fact  that 
she  had  been  a  kind  of  bracing  influence  in  the 
lives  of  all  who  had  come  near  her. 

Her  last  message  to  him  had  been  an  in- 
tensely sympathetic  letter  of  outspoken  en- 
couragement. She  had  heard  that  a  severe 
judgment  had  been  passed  upon  Hugh's  writ- 
ings by  a  common  friend.  She  knew  that  this 
had  been  repeated  to  Hugh,  and  judged  rightly 
that  it  had  hurt  and  wounded  him.  Her  letter 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  judgment  was  entirely 
baseless,  and  that  he  was  to  pursue  the  line  he 
had  taken  up  without  any  attempt  to  deviate 
from  it.  It  went  to  Hugh's  heart  that  he  had 
made  little  effort  of  late,  owing  to  circum- 
stances and  pressure  of  work,  to  see  her ;  but 
he  knew  that  she  was  aware  of  his  affection, 
and  he  had  never  doubted  hers.  He  felt,  too, 
that  if  there  had  been  anything  to  forgive,  any 
shadow  of  dissatisfaction,  it  was  forgiven  in 
that  moment.  Her  death  seemed  somehow  to 
Hugh  to  be  the  strongest  proof  he  had  ever 


388  Beside  Still  Waters 

received  of  the  permanent  identity  of  the  soul; 
it  was  impossible  to  think  of  her  as  not  there  ; 
equally  impossible  was  it  to  think  of  her  as 
wrapped  in  sleep,  or  even  transformed  to  a  heav- 
enly meekness  ;  he  could  think  of  her,  with  per- 
haps an  added  brightness  of  demeanour,  at  the 
knowledge  of  how  easy  a  thing  after  all  had 
been  the  passage  she  had  feared,  with  the  dark 
eyes  that  he  knew  so  well,  like  wells  of  fire  in 
the  pale  face,  smiling  almost  disdainfully  at  the 
thought  that  others  should  grieve  for  her ;  she 
was  one  whom  it  was  impossible  ever  to  com- 
passionate, and  Hugh  could  not  compassionate 
her  now.  She  would  have  had  no  sort  of  tol- 
erance for  any  melancholy  or  brooding  grief; 
she  would  desire  to  be  tenderly  remembered, 
but  she  would  have  been  utterly  impatient  of 
the  thought  that  any  grief  for  her  should 
weaken  or  darken  the  outlook  of  her  friends 
upon  the  world.  Hugh  resolved,  with  a  great 
flood  of  strong  love  for  his  friend,  that  he  would 
grieve  for  her  as  she  would  have  had  him  grieve, 
as  though  they  were  but  separated  for  a  little. 
She  had  left,  he  learned,  the  most  decisive  di- 
rection that  no  one  should  be  summoned  to  her 
funeral:  that  was  so  like  her  brave,  sensible 
nature;  she  desired  the  grief  for  her  to  be  whole- 
some and  temperate  grief,  with  no  lingering 
over  the  sad  accidents  of  mortality.     Hugh  felt 


The  Gate  of  Lile  389 

the  strong  bond  of  friendship,  that  had  existed 
between  them,  grow  and  blossom  into  a  vigor- 
ous and  enduring  love.  She  seemed  close 
beside  him  all  that  day,  approving  his  efforts 
after  a  joyful  tranquillity.  He  could  almost  see 
her,  if  he  sank  for  a  moment  into  a  tearful  sor- 
sow,  casting  upward  that  impatient  look  he 
knew  so  well,  if  any  instance  of  human  weakness 
were  related  in  her  presence. 

And  thus  the  death  of  his  old  friend  seemed, 
as  the  day  drew  on,  to  have  brought  a  strange 
brightness  into  his  life,  by  making  the  darkless 
terrible,  the  unknown  more  familiar.  She  was 
there,  with  the  same  brave  courtesy,  the  same 
wholesome  scorn,  the  same  humorous  decisive- 
ness ;  and  though  the  thought  of  the  gap  came 
like  an  ache  into  his  mind,  again  and  again,  he 
resolved  that  he  would  not  yield  to  ineffectual 
sadness  ;  but  that  he  would  be  worthy  of  the 
friendship  which  she  had  given  him,  not  easily, 
he  remembered,  but  after  long  testing  and 
weighing  his  character ;  and  that  he  would  be 
faithful — he  prayed  that  he  might  be  that — to 
so  pure  and  generous  a  gift.  -^ 


XL 


In  Hugh's  temperament,  sensitive  and  eager 
as  it  was,  there  was  a  strong  tendency  to  live 
in  the  future  and  in  the  past  rather  than  in  the 
present.  In  the  past,  he  realised,  he  could  live 
without  dismay  and  without  languor,  because 
the  mind  has  so  extraordinary  a  power  of  sift- 
ing its  memories,  of  throwing  away  and  dis- 
regarding all  that  is  sordid,  ugly,  and  base,  and 
retaining  only  the  finest  gold.  But  there  was 
a  danger  of  dwelling  two  much  upon  the  future, 
because  the  anxious  mind,  fertile  in  imagination, 
was  so  apt  to  weave  for  itself  pictures  of  dis- 
couragement and  failure,  sad  dilemmas,  dreary 
dishonours,  calamities,  shadows,  woes.  How 
often  had  the  thought  of  what  might  be  in 
^pre  clouded  the  pure  sunshine  of  some  bright 
day  of  summer  ;  how  often  had  the  thought  of 
isolation,  of  loss,  of  bereavement,  hung  like  a 
cloud  between  himself  and  his  intercourse  even 
with  those  whom  he  most  feared  to  lose !  He 
thought  sometimes  of  that  sad  and  yet  bracing 
sentiment,  uttered  by  one  whose  life  had  been 
390 


A  Funeral  Pomp  391 

filled  with  every  delight  that  wealth,  guided 
by  cultivated  taste,  could  purchase.  "  My  life," 
said  this  wearied  man,  "  has  been  clouded  by 
troubles,  most  of  which  never  happened."  But 
even  apart  from  the  sorrows  which  he  knew 
might  or  might  not  befall  him,  there  was 
one  darkest  shadow,  the  shadow  of  death,  the 
cessation  of  beloved  energies,  of  delightful 
prospects,  of  the  sweet  interchange  of  friend- 
ship, of  the  bright  and  brave  things  of  life. 
Could  one,  he  asked  himself,  ever  come  to  re- 
gard death  as  a  natural,  a  beautiful  thing,  a 
delicious  resting  from  life,  an  appointed  goal  ? 
It  was  the  one  thing  certain  and  inevitable,  the 
last  terror,  the  final  silence,  which  it  seemed 
nothing  could  break. 

The  thought  came  to  him  with  a  deep  insist- 
ence on  a  day  when  the  funeral  services  for  a 
great  personage,  called  away  without  a  single 
warning,  were  held  in  the  chapel  of  his  own 
college.  There  was  a  great  gathering  of  friends 
and  residents.  The  long  procession,  blackrobed 
and  bareheaded,  with  the  chilly  winter  sun 
shining  down  on  the  court,  wound  slowly 
through  the  college  buildings,  with  many  halts, 
and  at  last  entered  the  great  chapel,  the  organ 
playing  softly  a  melody  of  pathetic  grief,  in 
which  the  sad  revolt  of  human  hearts  that  had 
loved    life  and    the  warm,   kind    world,   made 


392  Beside  Still  Waters 

itself  heard.  They  passed  to  their  places,  and 
then  very  slowly  and  heavily  the  sad  and 
helpless  burden,  the  coffin,  veiled  and  palled, 
freighted  with  the  rich  scents  of  the  dying 
flowers  that  lay  in  stainless  purity  upon  it, 
was  borne  to  its  place.  The  life  of  their  brother 
had  been  a  very  useful,  happy,  and  innocent 
life,  full  of  quiet  energies,  of  simple  activi- 
ties, of  refined  pleasures.  There  seemed  no 
need  for  its  suspension.  The  very  suddenness 
of  the  summons  had  been  a  beautiful  and 
kindly  thing,  attended  by  no  fears  and  little 
suffering — but  kindly,  only  upon  the  sup- 
position that  it  was  necessary.  The  holy 
service  proceeded,  the  voice  of  old  human 
sorrow,  of  tender  hope,  of  ardent  faith,  thrill- 
ing through  the  mournful  words.  It  was  well, 
no  doubt,  as  acquiescence  was  inevitable,  to 
acquiesce  as  patiently,  even  as  eagerly  as 
possible.  But  there  were  two  alternatives : 
one  that  the  beloved  life  had  gone  out  utterly, 
as  an  expiring  flame  ;  if  so  was  it  not  well 
to  know  it,  so  that  one  might  frame  one's 
life  upon  that  sad  knowledge?  yet  the  heart 
could  not  bear  to  think  it  ;  and  then  Faith 
seemed  to  step  in,  dimly  smiling,  finger 
on  lip,  and  pointing  upwards.  If  that  smile, 
that  pointing  hand,  meant  anything,  why 
could  there  not  be    sent   some   hint    of   cer- 


Fear  393 

tainty  that  the  sweet,  fragrant  life  that  was 
over,  so  knit  up  with  love  and  friendship 
and  regard,  had  a  further,  a  serener  future 
awaiting  it?  The  question  was,  did  such  a 
scene  as  was  then  enacted  hold  any  real 
and  vital  message  of  hope  for  the  soul ;  or 
was  it  a  thing  to  turn  the  back  upon,  to  forget, 
to  banish,  as  merely  casting  a  shadow  upon  the 
joyful  energies  of  life? 

It  seemed  to  Hugh,  when  the  sad  rites  were 
done,  and  he  was  left  alone,  that  there  was  but 
one  solution  possible — the  thought  shaped  itself 
dimly  and  wistfully  out  of  the  dark — that  there 
was  one  element  that  was  out  of  place,  one  ele- 
ment over  which  the  mind  had  a  certain  power, 
that  one  must  resolve  to  exorcise  and  cast  out — 
the  element  of  fear.  And  y^t  fear,  that  unman- 
ning, abominable  thing,  that  struck  the  light 
out  of  life,  that  made  one  incapable  of  energy 
and  activity  alike,  was  that,  too,  not  a  dark  gift 
from  the  Father's  hand?  Had  it  a  purifying,  a 
restoring  influence?  It  seemed  to  Hugh  that 
it  had  none.  Yet  why  was  it  made  so  terribly 
easy,  so  insupportably  natural,  if  it  had  not  its 
place  in  the  great  economy  of  God  ?  Was  not 
this  the  darkest  of  dark  dilemmas?  Slowly  re- 
flecting on  it,  Hugh  seemed  to  see  that  fear  had 
one  effect  of  good  about  it ;  it  was  one  of  those 
things,  and  alas  they  were  many,  that  seemed 


394  Beside  Still  Waters 

strewn  about  us  only  that  we  might  learn  to  tri- 
umph over  them.  fFor  one  who  really  believed 
in  the  absolutely  infinite  and  all-embracingwill 
of  God,  there  was  no  room  for  fear  at  all.  )( If  me 
things  of  life  were  sent  wisely,  tenderly,'and 
graciously,  not  care,  not  suffering,  not  even 
death  admitted  of  any  questioning  ;  and  yet 
fear  seemed  a  deeper,  more  instinctive  thing 
than  reasoning  itself.  The  very  fear  of  non- 
existence, in  the  light  of  reason,  seemed  a 
wholly  unreal  thing.  No  shadow  of  it  attached 
to  the  long  dark  years  of  the  world,  which  had 
passed  before  one's  own  conscious  life  began. 
One  could  look  back  in  the  pages  of  history  to 
the  ancient  pageant_of  the  world  in  which  one 
had  no  part,  and  not  feel  one's  self  wronged  or 
misused  in  having  had  no  share  in  those  vivid 
things.  Why  should  we  regard  a  past  in  which 
we  had  had  no  conscious  part  with  such  a  blithe 
serenity,  and  yet  look  forward  to  that  future  in 
which,  for  all  we  knew,  we  could  have  no  part 
either,  with  such  an  envious  despair?  The 
thought  was  unreasonable  enough,  but  it  was 
there.  But  it  was  possible,  by  thus  boldly 
and  tranquilly  confronting  the  problem,  to 
diminish  the  pressure  of  the  shadow.  A  man 
could  throw  himself,  could  he  not,  in  utter  con- 
fidence before  the  feet  of  God,  claiming  nothing, 
demanding  nothing  but  the   sense   of  perfect 


The  Daily  Manna  395 

acquiescence  in  His  will  and  deed?  The  secret 
again  was,  not  to  forecast  and  forebode,  but  to 
live  in  the  day  and  for  the  day,  practising  labour, 
kindliness,  gentleness,  peace.  That  was  a  true 
image,  the  image  of  those  old  pilgrims  who 
gathered  the  manna  for  their  daily  use  ;  little  or 
much,  it  sufficed ;  and  no  one  might,  through 
indolence  or  prudence,  evade  the  daily  labour 
by  laying  up  a  store ;  the  store  vanished  in 
corruption.  So  it  was  with  all  ambitious 
dreams,  all  attempts  to  lay  a  jealous  hand  on 
what  might  be  ;  it  was  that  which  poisoned  life. 
Those  far-reaching  plans,  those  hopes  of  ease 
and  glory,  that  wealth  laid  up  for  many  years, 
they  were  the  very  substance  of  decay.  Even 
fear  itself  must  be  accepted,  when  it  was  whole- 
somely and  inevitably  there  ;  but  not  amplified, 
added  to,  dwelt  upon.  How  rarely  was  one  in 
doubt  about  the  next,  the  immediate  duty. 
And  one  could  surely  win,  by  patjentjjractice, 
by  resolute  effort,  the  power  of  casting  out  of 
the  moment  the  shadow  of  the  uneasy  days 
ahead.  How  simple,  how  brief  those  very  un- 
easinesses turned  out  to  be !  Things  were  never 
as  bad  as  one  feared,  ever  easier  than  one  had 
hoped.  It  was  a  false  prudence,  a  foolish  cal- 
culation, to  think  that  by  picturing  the  terrors 
of  a  crisis  one  made  it  easier  when  it  came  ;  just 
as  one  so  sadly  discounted  joys  by  anticipation 


39^  Beside  Still  Waters 

and  found  them  hollow,  disappointing  husks 
when  they  lay  open  in  the  hand. 

Hugh  rose  from  his  thoughts  and  walked  to 
the  window.  The  day  was  dying,  robed  in  a  sol- 
emn pomp.  The  fields  were  shrouded  in  mist 
but  the  cloud-rims  in  the  west  were  touched 
with  intense  edges  of  gold ;  Hugh  thought  of 
the  little  churchyard  that  lay  beyond  those 
trees,  where,  under  the  raw  mould  heaped  up  so 
mutely,  under  the  old  wall,  besidethe  yew-tree, 
in  the  shadow  of  the  chancel-gable,  lay  the  per- 
ishing vesture  of  the  spirit  of  his  friend,  ban- 
ished from  light  and  warmth  to  his  last  cold 
house.  How  lonely,  how  desolate  it  seemed  ; 
and  the  mourners,  too,  sitting  in  the  dreary 
rooms,  with  the  agony  of  the  gap  upon  them, 
the  empty  chair,  the  silent  voice,  the  folded 
papers,  the  closed  books !  How  could  God 
atone  for  all  that,  even  though  He  made  all 
things  new?  It  was  not  what  was  new,  but 
what  was  old,  for  which  one  craved  ;  that  long 
perspective  of  summer  mornings,  of  pacings  to 
and  fro,  of  happy  work,  of  firelit  evenings,  of 
talk,  of  laughter,  the  groups  breaking  up  and 
reforming — how  little  one  had  guessed  and  val- 
ued the  joy,  the  content,  the  blessing  of  them  at 
the  time !  In  the  midst  of  them,  one  was  reach- 
ing forwards,  restlessly  and  vainly,  to  the  fut- 
ure that  was  to  be  richer  yet.    Then  the  future 


The  Lapsing  Moment         397 

became  the  happy  present,  and  still  one  had 
leaned  forward.  How  idle  it  was  !  even  while  he 
waited  and  gazed,  the  light  of  evening  was  gone, 
the  clouds  were  lustreless  and  wan,  the  sunset, 
that  band  of  golden  light,  was  flying  softly,  a 
girdle  of  beauty  round  the  world  ;  but  the  twi- 
light and  the  night  had  their  beauty,  too,  their 
peace,  their  refreshment,  their  calm. 


XLI 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  because  this  lit- 
tle book  attempts  to  trace  the  more  secret  and 
solitary  thoughts  of  Hugh,  as  his  soul  took 
shape  under  the  silent  influences  of  pensive  re- 
flection, that  the  current  of  his  life  was  all  passed 
in  lonely  speculation.  He  had  a  definite  place 
in  the  world,  and  mi2£edLwitli,Jiis  fellow-men, 
with  no  avoidance  of  the  little  cares  of  daily 
life.  He  only  tended,  as  solitude  became  more 
dear  to  him,  and  as  the  thoughts  that  he  loved 
best  rose  more  swiftly  and  vividly  about  him, 
to  frame  his  life,  as  far  as  he  could,  upon  simple 
and  unambitious  lines. 

In  this  he  acted  according  to  the  dictates  of 
a  kind  of  intuition.  It  was  useless,  he  felt,  to 
analyse  motives  ;  it  was  impossible  to  discover 
how  much  was  disinterestedness,  how  much  un- 
worldliness,  how  much  the  pursuit  of  truth,  how 
much  the  avoidance  of  anxious  responsibility, 
how  much  pure  indolence.  He  was  quite  ready 
to  believe  that  a  certain  amount  of  the  lat- 
ter came  in,  though  Hugh  was  not  indolent  in 
398 


Following  the  Light  399 

the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He  was 
incapable  of  pure  idling ;  but  he  was  also  in- 
capable of  carrying  out  prolonged  and  patient 
labour,  unless  he  was  keenly  interested  in  an 
object;  and  the  fact  that  the  found  the  renun-  L-^ 
ciation  of  ambitions  so  easy  and  simple  a  thing  ' 
was  a  sufficient  proof  to  him  that  his  interest 
in  mundane  things  was  not  very  vital.  But 
Hugh  above  all  things  desired  to  have  no  illu- 
sions about  himself;  and  he  was  saved  from  j 
personal  vanity  not  so  much  by  humility  of  na- 
ture as  from  a  deep  sense  of  the  utter  depend-  I 
ence  of  all  created  things  on  their  Creator.  He 
did  not  look  upon  his  own  powers, his  own  good 
qualities,  as  redounding  in  any  way  to  his  credit, 
but  as  the  gift  of  God.  He  never  fell  into  the 
error  of  imagining  himself  to  have  achieved 
anything  by  his  own  ability  or  originality,  but 
only  as  the  outcome  of  a  desire  implanted  in 
him  by  God,  who  had  also  furnished  him  with 
the  requisite  perseverance  to  carry  them  out. 
He  could  not  lay  his  finger  on  any  single  quality, 
and  say  that  he  had  of  his  own  effort  im- 
proved it.  And,  in  studying  the  lives  and  tem- 
peraments of  others,  he  did  not  think  of  their 
achievements  as  things  which  they  had  accom- 
plished ;  but  rather  as  a  sign  of  the  fuller  great- 
ness of  glory  which  had  been  revealed  to  them. 
Life  thus  became  to  him  a  following  of  light ; 


400  Beside  Still  Waters 

he  desired  to  know  his  own  limitations,  not  be- 
cause of  the  interest  of  them,  but  as  indicating 
to  him  more  clearly  what  he  might  undertake. 
It  was  a  curious  proof  to  him  of  the  appropriate- 
/  ness  of  each  man's  conditions  and  environment 
/  to  his  own  particular  nature,  when  he  reflected 
that  no  one  whom  he  had  ever  known,  however 
V  unhappy,  however  faulty,  WQuld-fiver  willingly 
X  have  exchanged  identities  with  any  one.  else. 
People  desired  to  be  rid  of  definite  afflictions, 
definite  faults ;  they  desired  and  envied  particu- 
lar qualities,  particular  advantages  that  others 
possessed,  but  he  could  not  imagine  that  any 
one  in  the  world  would  exchange  any  one 
else's  identity  for  his  own  ;  one  would  like  per- 
haps to  be  in  another's  place,  and  this  was 
generally  accompanied  by  a  feeling  that  one 
would  be  able  to  make  a  much  better  thing  of 
another's  sources  of  happiness  and  enjoyment, 
than  the  person  whose  prosperity  or  ability  one 
envied  seemed  to  make.  But  he  could  hardly 
conceive  of  any  extremity  of  despair  so  great  as 
to  make  a  human  being  willing  to  accept  the  lot 
of  another  in  its  entirety.  Even,  one's  own_ 
faults  and  limitations  were  dear  to  one;  the 
whole  thing — character,  circumstances,  rela- 
tions with  others,  position — made  up  to  each 
person  the  most  interesting  problem  in  the 
world ;  and  this  immense  consciousness  of  sepa- 


Sincerity  401 

rateness  ;  even  of  essential  superiority,  was  per- 
haps the  strongest  argument  that  Hugh  knew  in 
favour  of  the  preservation  of  a  personal  identity 
after  death. 

Hugh  then  found  himself  in  this  position  :  he 
was  no  longer  young,  but  he  seemed  to  him- 
self to  have  retained  the  best  part  of  youth, 
its  openness  to  new  impressions,  its  zest,  its 
sense  of  the  momentousness  of  occasions,  its 
hopefulness ;  he  found  himself  with  duties 
which  he  felt  himself  capable  of  discharging; 
with  a  trained  literary  instinct  and  a  real 
power  of  expression  ;  even  if  he  had  not  hith- 
erto produced  any  memorable  work,  he  felt  that 
he  was  equipped  for  the  task,  if  only  some 
great  and  congenial  theme  presented  itself 
to  his  mind.  He  found  himself  with  a ; 
small  circle  of  friends,  with  a  competence, 
sufficient  for  his  simple  needs;  day  by  day. 
there  opened  upon  his  mind  ideas,  thoughts,' 
and  prospects  of  ever-increasing  mystery  and 
beauty ;  as  to  his  character  and  temperament,  he 
found  himself  desiring  to  empty  himself  of  all 
extraneous  elements,  all  conventional  traditions 
all  adopted  ideas;  his  idea  of  life  indeed  was 
that  it  was  an  educative  process,  and  that  the 
further  that  the  soul  could  advance  upon  the 
path  of  self-knowledge  and  sincerity,  the  more 
that  it  could  cast  away  all  the  things  that  were 

36 


402  Beside  Still  Waters 

not  of  its  essence,  the  better  prepared  one 
was  to  be  filled  with  the  divine  wisdom.  The 
deeper  that  he  plunged  into  the  consideration 
of  the  mysterious  conditions  and  laws  which 
surrounded  him,  the  greater  the  mystery  be- 
came ;  but  instead  of  becoming  more  hopeless,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  the  dawn  appeared  to 
brighten  every  moment,  as  one  came  closer  to 
the  appreciation  of  one's  own  ignorance,  weak- 
ness and  humility.  Instead  of  drawing  nearer  to 
despair,  he  drew  every  day  nearer  to  a  tender 
simplicity,  a  larger  if  more  distant  hope,  an  in- 
tenser  desire  to  be  at  one  with  the  vast  Will 
that  had  set  him  where  he  was,  and  that  denied 
him  as  yet  a  knowledge  of  the  secret.  As  he 
ascended  with  slow  steps  into  the  dark  moun- 
tain of  life,  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  became 
more  remote,  the  noise  of  their  shouting  more 
faint.  He  thought,  with  no  compassion,  but 
with  a  wondering  tenderness,  of  the  busy 
throng  beneath  ;  but  he  saw  that,  one  by  one, 
spirits  smitten  with  the  divine  hope  slipped 
from  that  noisy  world,  and,  like  himself,  began 
to  climb  the  solitary  hills.  What  lay  on  the 
other  side  ?  That  he  could  not  even  guess ; 
but  he  had  a  belief  in  the  richness,  the  large- 
ness of  the  mind  of  God  ;  and  he  saw  as  in 
a  vision  the  day  breaking  on  a  purer  and 
sweeter  world,  full  of  great  surprises,  mighty 


A  Better  World  403 

thoughts,  pure  joys ;  he  knew  not  whether  it 
was  near  or  far,  but  something  in  his  heart  told 
him  that  it  was  assuredly  there  I  ^M 


XLII 

How  swiftly  the  summer  melted  into  the 
autumn  !  the  old  lime-trees  in  the  college  court 
were  soon  all  gold ;  how  bravely  that  gold  seemed 
to  enrich  the  heart,  on  the  still,  clear,  fresh  morn- 
ings of  St.  Luke's  summer  !  That  wise  physician 
of  souls  has  indeed  had  set  aside  for  him  the 
most  inspiriting,  the  most  healing  days  of  the 
year,  days  of  tonic  coolness,  of  invigorating 
colour,  of  bracing  sun ;  and  then  the  winter 
closes  in,  when  light  is  short,  and  the  sun  is  low 
and  cold  ;  when  the  eye  is  grateful  for  the  rich 
brown  of  naked  fields,  leafless  woods,  and  misty 
distances.  Yet  there  is  a  solemn  charm  about 
the  darkening  day,  when  the  sun  sets  over  the 
wide  plain  rolled  in  smoky  vapours  and  gilded 
banks  of  cloud  ;  and  then  there  is  the  long  fire- 
lit  evening  to  follow,  when  books  give  up  their 
secrets  and  talk  is  easiest. 

The  summer,  for  all  its  enervating  heat,  its 

piercing  light,  was  the  time,  so  Hugh  thought, 

for  reflection.     In   winter  the   mind    is   often 

sunk  in  a  sort  of  comfortable  drowsiness,  and 

404 


Aconite  405 

hibernates  within  its  secure  cell.  Hugh  found 
the  activities  of  work  very  absorbing  in  those 
darker  days:  his  thoughts  took  on  a  more 
placid,  more  contented  tinge.  Early  in  the 
year  he  walked  alone  along  the  Backs  at  Cam- 
bridge. He  passed  the  great  romantic  gate- 
posts of  St.  John's,  with  the  elms  of  the  high 
garden  towering  over  them,  his  mind  occu- 
pied with  a  hundred  small  designs.  It  was  a 
shock  of  inexpressible  surprise,  as  he  passed  by 
the  clear  stream  that  runs  over  its  sandy  shal- 
lows, and  feeds  the  garden  moats,  to  see  that 
in  the  Wilderness  the  ground  was  bright  with 
the  round  heads  of  the  yellow  aconite,  the 
first  flower  to  hear  the  message  of  spring. 
The  appearance  of  that  brave  and  hardy 
flower  in  that  particular  place  had  a  peculiar 
and  moving  association  for  Hugh.  More  than 
twenty  years  before,  in  his  undergraduate 
days,  in  a  time  of  deep  perplexity  of  mind,  he 
had  walked  that  way  on  a  bright  Sunday 
morning,  his  young  heart  burdened  with  sor- 
rowful preoccupation.  How  hard  those  youth- 
ful griefs  had  been  to  bear !  they  were  so 
unfamiliar,  they  seemed  so  irreparably  over- 
whelming ;  one  had  not  learned  to  look  over 
them  or  through  them ;  they  darkened  the 
present,  they  hung  like  a  black  cloud  over  the 
future.    How  fantastic,  how  exaggerated  those 


4o6  Beside  Still  Waters 

woes  had  been,  and  yet  how  unbearably  real ! 
He  had  stood,  he  remembered,  to  watch  the 
mild  sunlight  strike  in  soft  shafts  among  the 
trees.  The  hardy  blossoms,  cold  and  scentless, 
but  so  unmistakably  alive,  had  given  him  a  deep 
message  of  hope,  a  thrill  of  expectation.  He 
had  gone  back,  he  remembered,  and  in  a  glow 
of  impassioned  emotion  had  written  a  little 
poem  on  the  theme,  in  a  locked  note-book,  to 
which  he  confided  his  inmost  thoughts.  He 
could  recall  some  of  the  poor  stanzas  still,  so 
worthless  in  expression,  yet  with  so  fiery  a 
heart. 

The  thought  of  the  long  intervening  years 
came  back  to  Hugh  with  a  sense  of  wonder 
and  gratitude.  He  had  half  expected  then,  he 
remembered,  that  some  great  experience  would 
perhaps  come  to  him,  and  lift  him  out  of  his 
shadowed  thoughts,  his  vague  regrets.  That 
great  experience  had  not  befallen  him,  but 
how  far  more  wisely  and  tenderly  he  had  been 
dealt  with  instead !  Experience  had  been 
lavished  upon  him ;  he  had  gained  interest, 
he  had  practised  activity,  and  he  had  found 
patience  and  hope  by  the  way.  He  knew  no 
more  than  he  knew  then  of  the  great  and  dim 
design  that  lay  behind  the  world,  and  now  he 
hardly  desired  to  know.     He  had  been  led,  he 


A  Calm  407 

had  been  guided,  with  a  perfect  tenderness, 
a  deliberate  love.  The  only  lost  hours,  after 
all,  had  been  the  hours  which  he  had  given  to 
anxiety  and  doubt,  to  ambition  and  desire. 
When  the  moment  had  come,  which  he  had 
heavily  anticipated,  there  had  never  been  any 
question  as  to  how  he  should  act ;  and  yet  he 
had  not  been  a  mere  puppet  moved  by  forces 
outside  his  control.  He  could  not  harmonise 
the  sense  of  guidance  with  the  sense  of  free- 
dom, and  yet  both  had  undoubtedly  been 
there.  He  had  been  dealt  with  both  frankly 
and  tenderly ;  not  saved  from  fruitful  mistakes, 
not  forbidden  to  wander;  and  yet  his  mistakes 
had  never  been  permitted  to  be  irreparable,  his 
wanderings  had  taught  him  to  desire  the  road 
rather  than  to  dread  the  desert. 

A  great  sense  of  tranquillity  and  peace 
settled  down  upon  his  spirit.  He  cast  himself 
in  an  utter  dependence  upon  the  mighty  will 
of  the  Father ;  and  in  that  calm  of  thought 
his  little  cares,  and  they  were  many,  faded  like 
wreaths  of  steam  cast  abroad  upon  the  air. 
To  be  sincere  and  loving  and  quiet,  that  was 
the  ineffable  secret ;  not  to  scheme  for  fame, 
or  influence  or  even  for  usefulness ;  to  receive 
as  in  a  channel  the  strength  and  sweetness 
of  God. 


4o8  Beside  Still  Waters 

A  bird  hidden  in  a  dark  yew-tree  began 
softly  to  flute,  in  that  still  afternoon,  a  little 
song  that  seemed  like  a  prayer  for  bright  days 
and  leafy  trees  and  embowered  greenness;  a 
prayer  that  should  be  certainly  answered,  and 
the  fulfilment  of  which  should  be  dearer 
for  the  delay.  Hugh  knew  in  that  moment 
that  the  life  he  had  lived  and  would  live  was, 
in  its  barreness  and  bleakness,  its  veiling  cloud, 
its  chilly  airs,  but  the  preface  to  some  vast  and 
glorious  springtime  of  the  spirit,  when  hill  and 
valley  should  break  together  into  sunlit  bloom, 
when  the  trees  should  be  clothed  with  leaf, 
when  birds  should  sing  clear  for  joy,  and  the 
soul  should  be  utterly  satisfied.  The  old  poet 
had  said  that  the  saddest  thing  was  to  remem- 
ber happy  days  in  hours  of  sorrow ;  but  to 
remember  the  dreary  days  in  a  season  of  calm 
content,  what  joy  could  be  compared  to  that? 
His  heart  was  slowly  filled,  as  a  cup  with  wine, 
with  an  unutterable  hope ;  but  he  desired  no 
longer  that  some  great  thing  should  come  to 
him,  which  should  exalt  him  above  his  fellows 
and  make  him  envied  and  admired.  Rather 
should  the  humblest  and  the  lowest  place  suf- 
fice, some  corner  of  life  which  he  should  deck, 
and  tend,  and  keep  bright  and  sweet ;  a  few 
hands  to  grasp,  a  few  hearts  to  encourage  ;  and 


The  Dropping  Veil  409 

even  so  to  do  that  with  no  set  purpose,  but 
by  merely  letting  the  gentle  joy  of  the  soul 
overflow,  like  a  spring  of  brimming  waters,  fed 
from  high  hills  of  faith. 

And  so,  like  a  figure  that  passes  down  a  cor- 
ridor and  enters  at  an  open  door,  Hugh  passes 
from  our  sight.  He  mingles  with  his  fellows, 
he  goes  to  and  fro,  he  speaks  and  he  is 
silent,  he  smiles  and  weeps  ;  he  may  not  be 
distinguished  from  other  men,  and  there  lies 
his  best  happiness,  because  he  is  waiting  upon 
God.  His  life  may  be  long  or  short  ;  he  may 
mix  with  the  crowd  or  sit  solitary.  If  he  dif- 
fers at  all  from  others,  it  is  in  this,  that  he 
desires  no  costly  thread  of  gold,  no  bright- 
hued  skein  that  he  may  weave  his  texture  of 
life.  Upon  that  tapestry  will  be  depicted  no 
knight  in  shining  armour;  no  nymphs  with 
floating  vestures,  no  paradise  of  bowers  ;  rather 
dim  hills  and  cloud-hung  valleys,  and  the  dark- 
ness of  haunted  groves;  with  one  figure  of 
shadowy  hue  in  sober  raiment,  walking  ear- 
nestly as  one  that  has  a  note  of  the  way ;  he 
would  desire  nothing  but  what  may  uphold 
him ;  he  would  fear  nothing  but  what  may 
stain  him ;  he  would  shun  the  company  of  none 
who  need  him  ;  he  would  clasp  the  hand  of 
any  gentle-hearted  pilgrim.     So  would  he  walk 


4IO  Beside  Still  Waters 

in  quietness  to  the  dim  valley  and  the  dark 
stream,  believing  that  the  Father  has  a  place 
and  a  work  and  a  joy  for  the  smallest  thing 
that  His  hands  have  made. 


THE  END 


Ji  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 


Complete  Catalogues  sent 
on  application 


By 
ARTHUR  C.  BENSON  ("T.  B.") 

(Eighth  Impression) 

From  a  College  Window 

A  collection  of  essays  in  which  the  reader 
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frqmjife.  Mr.  Benson's  papers  are  character- 
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London  Chronicle. 

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The  Upton  Letters 

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Contents 

First  Series  :  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau — The  Soli- 
tude of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne — The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne  and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Carlyle  —  The  Science  of  Englisli  Verse  —  Arthur 
Symonds :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy ;  or,  The 
Ancient  P'eud  between  Philosophy  and  Art — The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

Second  Series  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son» 
nets — Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  dL 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb  —  Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe  —  The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne  :  Looking  before  and  after  —  Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis  ;  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

Third  Series  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Cowper-~ 
Whittier  the  Poet — The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve — 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne-— 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular  ? — A  Note 
on  Byron's  "Don  Juan" — Laurence  Sterne — ^J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest.  cJ:^ 


Fourth  Series  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney — A  Note  on  "  Daddy"  Crisp — George  Herbert — ^John 
Keats — Benjamin  Frapklin — Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman — William  Blake— The  Letters  of  Horace  Wal- 
pole — The  Theme  of   Paradise  Lost. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

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